China’s Unassertive Rise: What Is Assertiveness and How We Have Misunderstood It?

Abstract

Since 2010, there has been a drastic increase in the discussion and publication of ‘assertive China’ and ‘Chinese assertiveness’ in the English-speaking aca-demic sphere, governmental actors and international news coverage. The rise of the new assertive China narrative could be a return of the ‘China threat’ dispute between the neo-realists in the West and their hawkish counterparts in China. The monolithic interpretation and distortion of ‘assertiveness’ have complicated the picture of a fast-changing and a somewhat unpredictable China. This article brings together the assertive China narrative, the concept of assertiveness in behavioural science, and Lucian W. Pye’s psychocultural analysis of Chinese politics to see how the state psyche of China has been misread by both the West and China itself. The purpose of this article is not just to summarize and address the rise of the assertive China narrative, but to raise psychocultural questions: What is assertiveness? How is it possible to fit the psychological concept of assertiveness in IR and Chinese foreign relations? Why is China not assertive? Why should China be assertive? How can China be assertive? Being assertive never means being aggressive. Today’s China is transforming from a passive, aggressive stage of behaviour towards a more active, assertive stage, but it is not there yet.