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This article applies a political sociology approach to the study of Chinese foreign policy. It uses the neo-weberian dichotomy of weak states-strong states to explain the features of the making of foreign policy. In particular, the article analyzes how the configuration in contemporary China of state-society relations - the domestic structure - affects Beijing's responses to international events. After a brief sketch, in the first section, of the analytical framework, the second section outlines the main characteristics of state-society relations in China, and the third section discusses the impact of domestic structure on Chinese foreign economic policy and security policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]