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Research on International Studies in The People's Republic of China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2022

David L. Shambaugh  and
Wang Jisi
David L. Shambaugh
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Wang Jisi
Affiliation:
Peking University
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Extract

As is the case with other social science disciplines and sub-disciplines, the field of international relations (IR) is beginning to assume a scholarly identity in China today. In some respects the field is building upon a foundation laid prior to the Cultural Revolution (when in 1964 then-Premier Zhou Enlai ordered the establishment of several IR research institutes and academic training programs), but in a very real sense it is only now being established for the first time. China's current opening to the world has provided additional stimulus to the development of the field as China's leaders and bureaucrats seek policy-oriented analyses of foreign nations. The field is expanding rapidly. This study will assess the current state of the field and will evaluate the potential for and impediments to developing the discipline.

Defining the Discipline

Various complex problems arise in trying to define the scope of the discipline of international relations in the Chinese context. Perhaps the biggest problem is that Chinese IR scholars and specialists have not themselves clearly delineated the parameters of their field. International relations therefore does not yet have a distinct identity as a discipline despite an increasingly strong institutional base of scholarship and analysis.

Type
Political Science in China
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , Fall 1984 , pp. 758 - 764
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1984

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Footnotes

*

The authors wish to thank the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China (CSCPRC) and the Ford Foundation, which made possible much of the research. Thanks also go to several members of the U.S. Committee on International Relations Studies with the PRC and to Harry Harding for their comments on an earlier draft. A more extensive version of this paper is due to appear in the CSCPRC Newsletter.

References

1 See, for example, Bangzuo, Wang et al. (Eds.), Zhengzhixue Jiaocheng (Henan: People's Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Baoxu, Zhao (Ed.), Zhengzhixue Gailun (Beijing: Beijing University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Chinese Political Science Association, Zhengzhi Yu Zhengzhi Kexue (Beijing: Masses Press, 1981)Google Scholar; No author, Jianming Zhengzhixue (Hebei: People's Press, 1983).

2 See Bernstein's, Thomas P. “Political Science” in Thurston, and Parker, (Eds.), Humanistic and Social Science Research in China (New York: Social Science Research Council, 1980), pp. 130–139 Google Scholar; Harding, Harry, “Political Science” in Orleans, (Ed.), Science in Contemporary China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980), pp. 518–529 Google Scholar; Murray, Douglas P., International Relations Research and Training in the People's Republic of China (Stanford: Northeast Asia-United States Forum on International Policy, 1982)Google Scholar; Baoxu, Zhao, The Revival of Political Science in China (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1983).Google Scholar