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Grown from within: Building a Chinese School of International Relations

Abstract Over the years, this author has been involved in the ‘Chinese school of International Relations (IR)’ debate. In this article I try to reflect on these discussions or debates from which some insights can be retrieved to inform future research and further growth of a Chinese School of IR. Should a Chinese school be set as the goal? If so, how should this be pursued? This debate and the relevant efforts have proved to be a promising movement in the Chinese IR community, demonstrating that a Chinese school of IR is inevitable and it actually is evolving. A theory is a generalization or cluster of generalizations. This article argues that from the ‘Tsinghua approach’, a ‘moral realism’ has sprung up. Qin Yaqin’s theorizing is centered around relationality and has been productive. A theory of symbiosis in the world community is being developed by a group of Shanghai-based scholars, and a ‘symbiosis school’ has grown up. Overall, four distinct theories of Chinese origins, i.e., relational theory, moral realism, tianxia theory and gongsheng/symbiotic theory, have appeared. Thus, IR theory-building in China in the first two decades of the 21st century has rendered the question ‘why there is no IR theory in China’ obsolete.