The Prestige-Seeking Logic in China’s Foreign Policy

Abstract Prestige is a critical yet underexplored dimension of power politics in international relations. Despite its significance, its conceptual foundations and foreign policy implications have gone largely unexamined and remain insufficiently clear. Traditionally, prestige has been dismissed as an irrational pursuit or a catalyst for unnecessary conflict. However, this reductive perspective overlooks states’ varying motivations across diverse political contexts and the sophisticated means by which states seek and leverage prestige. In response to the fundamental question of why and how great powers perceive prestige, this article offers an analytical framework based on subjective and intersubjective dimensions to reconceptualise prestige and explore its impact on Chinese foreign policy. More specifically, the article identifies four distinct scenarios pertaining to perceptions of prestige based on the state’s and other actors’ evaluations of prestige dynamics, these perceptions being straightforwardly categorised as overrated, self-overrated, underrated, and self-underrated. Furthermore, it explores four primary approaches to understanding China’s evolving conceptions and pursuits of international prestige: learning, adaptation, creativity, and competition. This article aims to advance the conceptual understanding of prestige and provide a range of analytical tools for examining and evaluating the fundamental drivers of Chinese foreign policy in the current era of uncertainty.