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At the theoretical level, Bartsch shows that Plato's I Republic i and the creation myth underpinning the ideal city, Kallipolis, have been the subject of considerable discussion in China. I Plato goes to China i is an expanded version of the Martin Lectures that Shadi Bartsch delivered at Oberlin College in 2018. [Extracted from the article]

The Chinese government is fond of invoking the 'hurt feelings of 1.4 billion Chinese citizens' to protest foreign actions and policies. However, this rhetoric might be nothing more than propaganda and attempts to leverage nationalist sentiment. How much do citizens in China actually care about issues completely unrelated to their daily livelihoods? To answer this, the study employs a representative survey to investigate the extent to which rhetoric about 'hurt feelings' is consistent with public opinion on four contemporary socio-political disputes involving the NBA, Marriott International, Mercedes-Benz and the city of Prague. Across the scenarios, we found that the Chinese government did not exaggerate the displeasure of audiences—citizens are aware of the cases, were indeed upset by them and advocated for retaliatory measures that were surprisingly more forceful than those adopted in reality. These emotions were largely driven by nationalistic sentiment rather than personal experiences or encounters, suggesting the success of state propaganda in steering the public opinion toward outcomes favourable to the state. These findings support recent studies highlighting the peculiar case of rising nationalism in China, and have important implications for the impact of public opinion on Chinese policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why has China's foreign policy become more assertive since 2009, and what is driving Beijing's foreign policy orientations? Given the significance of China's rise over the past few decades, it is surprising that this question has not been subjected to systematic analysis as well as general investigation within scholarly research. This article serves to examine the sources of China's assertiveness using a system-level, unit-level and individual-level analysis. This article first looks at system-level explanations such as state power, external threats and national interests, and then considers unit-level factors including bureaucratic competition, struggles of the elite and the surge of nationalism. However, both system-level and unit-level explanations alone fail to account for China's more assertive foreign policy. This suggests that individual factors play a major role in explaining the country's more assertive external behaviour. This is especially the case when the perceptions of the political elite are deeply embedded in the state leader's preferences. This finding can enhance our understanding of why traditional explanations, that do not incorporate the role of the state leader, may fail to predict Chinese foreign policy behaviour. To understand better the implications of China's rise, therefore, we must take into account the role of the state leadership and its impact on China's growing influence in international politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]