COMPREHENDING CHINA’S STANCE TOWARD GLOBAL FINANCIAL GOVERNANCE: A TWO-STAGE MODEL

Abstract

China’s attitude and foreign policies in global financial governance are not consistent. A two-stage model, which is comprised of formation of Guojia Liyi (interests and preferences of China, 国家利益) (Stage I) and decision-making process (Stage II), is established to explain China’s policy inconsistency in global financial governance. Through this model, the thesis makes two major explanations for policy inconsistency. First, China’s Guojia Liyi in various global financial governance institutions and/or events may be different. These different Guojia Liyi are constituted by personal epistemic interests, interests of the state and national interests and are constrained by both material and ideational factors, particularly the domestic and international political economic environment, state ideology and interpretation. Therefore, China’s policies based on these Guojia Liyi vary. Second, even if the Guojia Liyi formed are the same in different events or institutions, the final actions are not always in accordance to the Guojia Liyi due to the influence of some factors on the specific decision-making process, such as lobbying, institutional conflicts and others. The two-stage model explains the policy inconsistency through both ontological and epistemological integration. Ontologically, this model considers structure and agent and treats both state and decision- makers as units of analysis. Epistemologically, this model incorporates both rational and cognitive school of thoughts by separating Guojia Liyi formation with specific decision- making processes and considering time as a crucial variable.