CHINA'S CONFIDENT NATIONALISM.

This article focuses on the China's nationalism in contemporary times. Chinese foreign policy of the mid-1980s stems from four interrelated calculations. First, China's reform-minded leaders believed that through increased involvement in world affairs China can attain wealth and power while preserving its national essence. Second, they claim that the international setting permits a concentration upon domestic development. Third, they claim that China can benefit from effective participation in the international economic system and can attract foreign involvement in its economic development. And fourth, they believe that China can pursue steady, independent, pragmatic and purposeful policies not only toward the three major powers of concern to them (the Soviet Union, the United States and Japan) but also toward three areas of crucial importance (Korea, Indochina and Taiwan). While the charting of broad foreign policy guidelines remains the prerogative of a few people at the top principally Deng Xiaoping, China's De Facto ruler, refining and implementing the policy have become much more bureaucratic and diffuse. The current expression of Chinese nationalism provides the first key to understanding the foreign policy of the mid-1980s. Internationalism now prevails in Beijing.