School of International Relations and Public Affairs

When the new millennium was nearing, plenty of Chinese intellectuals engaged in an academic debate that shaped the landscape of China’s subsequent intellectual communities. This debate, namely “the New Leftists versus the Liberals”, has reflected and caused intensive cleavages between scholars with opposite opinions. One faction emerged in the debate, usually referred to as “the New Leftists”, was composed of scholars from very different backgrounds and has gained much publicity. It is still relevant to reexamine their original thoughts, which shaped the public discourse of contemporary China after 2000 and shows the concerns of Chinese intellectuals in an era of transformation. This article aims to examine the ideas expressed by seven of them, namely WANG Hui, GAN Yang, CUI Zhiyuan, WANG Shaoguang, KUANG Xinnian, HAN Yuhai and HAN Deqiang, exploring in depth what these thinkers have to offer in the contemporary context.

The articles included in this paper are selected from two collections of essays published in Mainland China after the debate (Gong Yang eds. 2003; Li Shitao eds. 2000) apart from WANG Shaoguang’s 1991 article which, albeit its importance, is not included in either book and can only be accessed via Internet. This sample will certainly not be a complete summary of the thinkers’ ideas, but it already reaches all the important authors and their major contributions to the debate. The methodology of this research will be text-analysis. I will not focus too much on the backgrounds of the authors but let the words speak for themselves.

In the paper, I will first distinguish among the seven authors this paper concerns and divide them roughly into two groups before further examining their arguments. Then I will analyze the ideas offered by the New Left, fairly and critically. I will end this paper with my own thoughts and reflections on this debate, with an emphasis on the “New Left” ideologies at stake.

In this paper, I will focus on the political ideas made by Wilson that have the closest affinities with the process of the American founding. The topics to be explored concentrate on the sovereignty of the people, federalism, interdepartmental relationships in the federal government, and republicanism. On the whole, this research reveals that Wilson’s political thought is considerably coherent, and his construction of an ideal political order for the United States is fundamentally based on the principle of popular sovereignty. His belief that the only legitimate justification of a government is the consent and support of the people shaped his thinking on other topics like federalism, internal relationships in the federal government and republicanism. The best label for him, as the topic indicated, is a genuine democrat in the founding, which finds its brilliant illustration throughout Wilson’s ideas and self-proclamation.

本文试图通过研究波兰社会在关键历史节点（1980年8月前后）的特征与历史进程，来提出在何种因果机制的影响下，团结工会运动得以突破之前波兰工人运动的限制，从一时一地的罢工转变成跨地区、长时段的组织性社会运动，最终甚至得以影响波兰的民主化转型，成为上世纪八十年代到九十年代间波兰社会不可或缺的力量。我们想要解释的是团结工会的根源如何促成了其形成；也就是说，我们所要提出的是一个社会科学意义上的机制为基础（mechanism-based）的解释，不仅仅停留在对历史原因和导火索因素的总结与罗列的层次上，更希望提出对团结工会的组织形成这一具体历史事件的阐述。

Developments at both the doctrinal and operational level suggest that the ‘post-modernisation’ of China’s PLA Navy (PLAN) has started. Issues such as the maritime disputes in the East and South China Seas and how to create a network of bases or ‘footholds’ outside Asia might slow down or temporarily halt this process. However, as China’s economic presence expands on a global scale, its security interests and those of the international community will overlap increasingly with one another. Consequently, once its transformation has been completed, the PLAN is likely to become a global and cooperative force.

This article looks at the influence of ancient military thinkers, especially Sunzi, in Chinese strategic culture today to shed light on a critical aspect of Alastair Iain Johnston's work on strategic culture: the relationship between the foreign policy elites and the cultural artefacts and symbols at the origin of strategic culture. The empirical analysis revolves around a large number of articles published by Chinese military scholars and officers between 1992 and early 2016 in the PLA Academy of Military Science's journal, China Military Science. The conclusion is that some elements of Chinese ancient military thought are readily apparent in China's military doctrine and operations today. These elements clearly call for a realist vision of the world, especially within the PLA. Yet, the analysis also prompts reflection on how to positively engage China on non-traditional security issues.

This article analyses the positions of the Chinese civilian leaders and military elites on Military Operations Other Than War in order to shed light on their preferences about the use of the armed forces in foreign policy between the late 1990s and the early 2010s. Over time, a significant divergence developed between civilians and soldiers until 2011, when the Libyan crisis happened. The study also prompts important considerations about our understanding of civil–military relations in China and future role of the People’s Liberation Army as a tool of statecraft in foreign policy.

Through the lens of securitization theory, this article looks at the significant impact that non-traditional security has had over Chinese foreign policy. Over time, non-traditional security has changed from being understood as an opportunity to boost China’s international standing, to being seen as an important category within security threats. China’s security and diplomatic behavior has changed accordingly. In particular, China has become more confident in using and authorizing force. This article pinpoints this process started in the 1990s by looking at the debate within the government and the legal, institutional and military response against those new threats. It also prompts important considerations about the drivers and the direction of Chinese foreign policy, and the general approach of studying the same subject.

The rise of China in international affairs has prompted a vibrant debate among scholars; however, there is no consensus over what kind of power China is. This article argues that China can be seen as the representative of a new breed of great powers emerging in a decentered world. It does so by looking at China’s participation in peacekeeping and antipiracy operations under the aegis of the United Nations. It is possible to see that since the early 1990s China’s strategy has shifted from primarily aiming at being acknowledged as a great power, to trying to exercise its growing international authority effectively to better serve its expanding interests. It did so by strengthening its involvement through the UN in international security affairs.

Building upon the conceptual work of Krahmann and Habermas, this study explains how political power and market forces in China combined to create an enormous domestic market for overseas security services and, at the same time, undermined the full development of domestic private security companies (PSCs). The growing responsiveness of the state to the request for protection of Chinese citizens and assets abroad made room for the initial development of Chinese PSCs’ overseas operations. However, the policy makers’ focus on political loyalty has inhibited the full-fledged maturation of China’s private security industry. So far, large foreign PSCs have been the main beneficiaries of this situation. The future development of Chinese PSCs remains possible in a gradual and pragmatic way, but Chinese policy makers will have to deal with important diplomatic and political questions before the development of any “Chinese Blackwater” will be imaginable.