Global order is becoming more contested and fragmented. Intensifying great-power rivalry between the United States and China, the unpredictable second Trump administration, the weakening of multilateral institutions (e.g., UN), expanding protectionism, technological competition, continuing wars in Europe and the Middle East, and the rapid development of artificial intelligence are reshaping the environment in which China formulates and conducts its foreign policy. These changes raise a central question: how is China responding to and contributing to the remaking of the international order?
This open panel invites theoretically informed and empirically grounded papers on contemporary Chinese foreign policy and China鈥檚 international relations. It welcomes research examining how Chinese leaders, institutions, firms, social actors, and policy communities interpret and respond to changes in global power, rules, markets, technologies, and security. Papers may address China鈥揢nited States relations under Trump 2.0; debates over a possible G2 or renewed bipolarity; China鈥檚 engagement with the Global South; China鈥檚 strategies/responses to global changes in economic security, tariffs, sanctions, supply chains, and industrial policy; the future of multilateralism and global governance; military and diplomatic competition; artificial intelligence and technological rivalry; or the domestic political and societal foundations of Chinese foreign policy.
The panel seeks to bring together diverse theoretical, methodological, and regional perspectives that identify mechanisms and specify sources of variation across issue areas, institutions, time periods, or bilateral and regional relationships. It welcomes comparative research, process tracing, historical analysis, policy analysis, and work drawing on original qualitative or quantitative evidence. By placing China within a changing and contested global system, the panel aims to clarify whether current transformations represent adaptation within the existing order, fragmentation into competing orders, or the emergence of new forms of hierarchy and coexistence.
The panel welcomes scholars at all career stages and seeks regional, gender, theoretical, and methodological diversity, with particular encouragement for doctoral and early-career researchers and scholars, and perspectives from Asia and from regions outside the United States and Europe.
