Assertiveness in China's Foreign Policy

Seminar with HEM David Mulroney, former Ambassador of Canada to China (2009-2012) and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, and Alice Ekman, Associate Research Fellow at the Ifri Center for Asian Studies.

Chair: Françoise Nicolas, Director, Ifri Center for Asian Studies

Since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, much has been written about China"s increasing assertiveness in East Asia - a renewed sense of confidence, a hardened position on territorial disputes, a desire to be increasingly seen as a “great power” on par with the United States, and, over the past year, a rhetoric bent on the fulfilment of the "China Dream" and the “revival of the great Chinese nation”. This conference will provide the opportunity to reflect on recent changes of China's foreign policy behaviour in concrete terms and assess if such changes merely reflect a short-term reaction to the regional context or a new long-term strategy with global reach.