Community of common destiny: China’s “new assertiveness” and the changing Asian order
| Author | Stephen N. Smith |
| Published date | 01 September 2018 |
| Date | 01 September 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020702018790278 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essays |
Scholarly Essay
Community of common
destiny: China’s ‘‘new
assertiveness’’ and the
changing Asian order
Stephen N. Smith
Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Abstract
This essay will discuss China’s re-emergence as a great power through the lens of the
English School. Following Ian Clark, I reconceptualize international society as a set of
historically changing principles of legitimacy. I argue that China’s ‘‘new assertiveness’’
under Xi Jinping is best explained by China’s pursuit of legitimacy in an international
arena where norms of legitimate modes of governance, development, and ordering
principles have long been defined by the West. Furthermore, this essay will examine
one recent development in Chinese International Relations theory, gongsheng,
which purports to offer an alternative normative basis for interstate order, and
probe its relationship to Xi Jinping’s recent declaration to build a ‘‘community of
common destiny’’ in Asia.
Keywords
China, Xi Jinping, Chinese IR theory, world order, great powers
China’s rise has provoked consternation in the West about the end of the US-led
liberal order. One recent representative of this genre, Michael Auslin of the con-
servative think tank American Enterprise Institute, constructs a ‘‘risk map’’ of
Asia, finding a region full of potential insecurities, and points to the source: ‘‘as
China has grown stronger, it has become more assertive, even coercive. Beijing has
embraced the role of a revisionist power.’’
1
Auslin asks how the USA should best
manage a changing Asia. The solutions are firmly liberal internationalist:
International Journal
2018, Vol. 73(3) 449–463
!The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0020702018790278
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Corresponding author:
Stephen Smith, Department of Political Science, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON,
Canada K1S 5B6.
Email: stephensmith4@cmail.carleton.ca
1. Michael R. Auslin, The End of the Asian Century: War, Stagnation, and the Risks to the World’s
Most Dynamic Region (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2017), 9.
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