Scottish Centre for China Research

China’s international behaviour has become a central concern in both scholarly and policy debates, yet interpretations of its motives and strategies diverge sharply. This talk presents a framework for making sense of these debates by evaluating four core analytical logics—universalist, exceptionalist, comparativist, and particularist—each of which highlights different drivers of Chinese foreign policy. We argue that these approaches are not mutually exclusive, but that their explanatory value depends on context. By treating two key issues—whether China acts as a unitary actor and whether it is distinctive—as empirical variables that vary across policy domains and over time, Ghiselli will advance a contextualist approach. Drawing on the case study of the South China Sea, he illustrates how this perspective helps explain both continuity and variation in Chinese foreign policy. The aim is to equip scholars and practitioners with a more flexible analytical toolbox for understanding China’s role in global politics.