Middle power hybridisation and China

This chapter explores how middle power hybridisation theory may be utilised to direct the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) relations with its neighbouring middle powers and how these middle powers may best take advantage of China as a great power to achieve their own goals. Its focus is thus guided by China’s concept of neighbouring diplomacy. China’s relations with the United States are also considered within this context. Cooperation between the two great powers is found to be necessary to restrict the self-motivated capacity of middle powers to disrupt their relationship. The opaque governance structures of the PRC, the predominantly atheoretical nature of indigenous Chinese International Relations scholarship and the resultant dominance of the Communist Party of China as the source of great power statecraft are identified as critical components to be accounted for in middle power statecraft.