ABSTRACT
Although it is widely agreed that China’s rise is one of the most important developments of the twenty-first century, it is heatedly debated among government officials, scholars, and pundits. In particular, one of the dominant queries seems to be what factors explain China’s international behavior and what consequences will China’s rise have on international politics. In this respect, there is a intense debate on issues such as: (1) what are the factors driving China’s external behavior? (2) How does China’s long history influence its current thinking about the relationship between itself and the world? (3) Is a conflict between the USA and China inevitable? In International Relations (IR) theory, such questions have been approached from a variety of perspectives, which-not surprisingly-have produced diverse responses.
