The Relevance of Deep Pluralism for China's Foreign Policy

Deep pluralism describes a global society in which power, wealth, and cultural and political authority are distributed diffusely within a system that has high interaction capacity and is strongly interdependent. This concept has empirical and normative value for understanding China's foreign policy. Empirically, it enables us to see that China has been a key driver of deep pluralism in its modern history. Normatively, it points to the importance of the contestation between consensual and contested forms of deep pluralism and the critical role China can play in this contestation. China is now facing choices between those motivated by raison d'etat (narrow self-interest) and raison de systeme (system-wide responsibility incorporating enlightened self-interest). For its professed goals of international peace and development, it is imperative that China promote a consensual form of deep pluralism in the spirit of raison de systeme. In the Asian region, where its regional policy is entangled with its US policy, this would require it to ameliorate contested deep pluralism in its policies towards the USA while adopting a consistent strategy of reassurance towards its neighbours.