Author: Qiu Huafei.

Chapter One China and World Understanding the origins and forces that have shaped China's foreign policy provides a framework in which to view both the changes and the continuities in Chinese foreign policy from 1949.The origins of China's foreign policy can be found in its size and population,historical legacy,worldview,nationalism,and Marxism-Lenimsm-Mao Zedong Thought.In China,Marxism found a similai link between the moral quality of a social class and its rule society.So the propensity of both Confucianism and Marxism to explain and justify policy in terms of historical principles probably contributed to the intellectual appeal of various grand theories of international relations to the leaders of the People's Republic of China.The first generations of PRC leaders have usually felt a need to frame their foreign policies in terms of broad historical epochs and categories.So these various historical schemes were rooted the China's immediate political situation and needs,they also reflected traditional Chinese notions about the appropriate relationship between power and morality.Power had to serve a moral purpose,which was derived from a study of history.The legitimacy of political power in contemporary China is still rooted squarely in interpretations of history,just as it was in traditional China. Three international factors-the foreign policies of the superpowers,the structure of the international system,and China's calculation of its relative power and interests were obviously important but played a relatively minor role during this period.The reasons that domestic factors dominated were the newness of the Chinese revolution and the role of Mao himself. Historical Legacy and Worldview China's long and rich history as the world's oldest continuous civilization has affected Chinese foreign relations in various ways.For centuries the Chinese empire enjoyed basically unchallenged greatness and self-sufficiency.China saw itself as the cultural center of the umverse,a view reflected in the concept of the Middle Kingdom (Zhongguo中国",the Chinese word for China).For the most part,it viewed non-Chinese peoples as uncivilized barbarians."