China's “new era” in foreign policy: Explaining change under Xi Jinping

Abstract China's supreme leader, Xi Jinping, has made fundamental changes to China's foreign policy, which have important implications for international security. What are the sources of Xi's foreign policy changes? Rather than assume that particular theoretical schools of international relations may provide the best explanations of foreign policy, we begin by observing that specific leaders' foreign policy preferences vary significantly. We infer characteristics of Xi's foreign policy preferences and methods based on his ideological statements, along with evidence from his domestic policies and habitually preferred methods of domestic rule. We find that these predicted characteristics imply policies that closely align with the revealed pattern of foreign policy change but also point out that foreign policy outcomes provide additional evidence about preferences that cannot be derived from ideological statements and domestic policy evidence.