President Xi Jinping pointed out during his inspection of Renmin University of China in 2022 that accelerating the development of philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics is, in the final analysis, about building an autonomous knowledge system with Chinese characteristics. This profound insight reveals the great significance and urgent practical need for constructing an autonomous knowledge system, and also points out the direction for the development of political science in China. Political science is a discipline that underpins philosophy and social sciences. Constructing an autonomous knowledge system of political science with Chinese characteristics will actively promote the building of an autonomous knowledge system of philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics. Theoretical innovation is an indispensable link in promoting the construction of China's autonomous political science knowledge system. Its core lies in deeply rooting in China's unique political history, culture, and governance practices, while maintaining dialogue and mutual learning with relevant theoretical systems internationally, and making widely recognized theoretical contributions. As a discipline that grew out of the collision between traditional statecraft learning and modern Western learning, the development of Chinese political science has always sought balance amid the tension between ''local experience'' and ''open theories.'' From the historical summary of the rise and fall of dynasties, to the introduction and reflection on Western political theories in modern and contemporary times, and then to the conscious exploration of issues centered on ''Chineseness,'' ''people-centeredness,'' ''global relevance,'' and ''contemporaneity'' in the 21st century, the development of Chinese political science is deeply rooted in China's historical soil and has continuously evolved through interactions with Western thought.
To actively advance the construction of an autonomous knowledge system for political science with Chinese characteristics, and in particular to strengthen the capacity of Chinese political science to engage in critical dialogue with mainstream Western political science theories, with the initiative and support of the Chenghai Institute of Global Development and Security at Renmin University of China, the Data Science Research Center (Liberal Arts Laboratory), School of International Studies, Renmin University of China, has launched and hosted the project 2024 Annual Report on Anglophone Scholarship on Chinese Governance and Foreign Policy (hereinafter referred to as the "2024 Annual Report").
The project team conducted a comprehensive scan of mainstream English academic journals in political science, sociology, economics, international relations, international security, and area studies (including China studies and Asian studies), and collected all academic papers published in these journals throughout 2024 that address issues of Chinese governance and diplomacy. Meanwhile, the team also collected all academic monographs related to Chinese governance and diplomacy published in 2024 by major English-language academic and commercial publishing houses.
Based on the collected English academic papers and monographs as core materials, the 2024 Annual Report systematically reviews the thematic distribution, key findings, and conclusions of English-language studies on Chinese governance and diplomacy in 2024. Subsequently, under the guidance of six full-time faculty members, ten master's and doctoral students specializing in Chinese politics, Chinese and foreign political institutions, diplomacy, and international relations authored literature reviews and critical commentaries on major research themes, completing the main body of the 2024 Annual Report.
''A workman must first sharpen his tools if he is to do his work well.'' Scholarly literature is the foundation of academic research. To gain a deeper understanding of China's political practices and extract political science theories therefrom, it is an indispensable prerequisite to fully grasp existing relevant research findings. Papers and monographs published in the English-language academia on China's governance and diplomacy constitute an important part of these existing research outcomes.
''Stones from other hills may serve to polish the jade of this one.'' Beyond understanding China's political practices through research rooted in China's own realities, Chinese political scientists can also benefit from related studies and debates in the English-language academia. With their distinct problem awareness and theoretical agendas, these studies stimulate academic thinking and imagination from alternative perspectives. They help Chinese political scientists transcend the intellectual blind spot of ''being unable to see the mountain clearly while one is in it,'' thus enabling a more comprehensive understanding of China's political practices.
''Know the enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles with no danger of defeat.'' Political science research can never be separated from the influence of ideology. Much of the English-language scholarship, due to its inherent ideological and value orientations, may not align with China's actual realities in terms of its starting points, perspectives, case selections, conclusions, and judgments. Relevant studies may fail to address issues that are truly important or meaningful to China, and may even involve unfair or hostile assessments of China.
Chinese political scientists should not only confidently critique research permeated with ideological and value biases, but also tell China's story well and communicate China's voice in ways that are understandable and acceptable to the outside world, and promote academic dialogue through logically rigorous theories supported by systematic and substantial evidence. The prerequisite for all this is to understand the other side systematically and read their scholarship deeply.
The research team sincerely hopes that the release of this report will provide systematic materials and literature lists for the talent cultivation of Chinese political science—especially the training of master's and doctoral students—and academic research. It aims to help Chinese political scientists gain a more systematic and comprehensive understanding of English-language scholarship on China, and contribute a modest effort to the construction of an independent knowledge system for political science with Chinese characteristics.
A brief introduction to the academic data and major findings of the 2024 Annual Report is provided below.
I. Papers and Monographs Collected for the Report
The data collected for the 2024 Annual Report are sourced from 56 academic outlets, including 44 academic journals and 12 publishing houses.
The academic journals covered in this report include:
Flagship general disciplinary journals, represented by the American Political Science Review, the British Journal of Political Science, and World Politics;
Authoritative journals in specialized subfields, represented by Comparative Political Studies, International Security, and the Review of International Political Economy;
Leading area studies journals, represented by Asian Survey, the China Quarterly, and the Journal of Contemporary China.
The 12 publishing houses covered in this report include:
Leading university academic presses, represented by Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Harvard University Press;
High-quality commercial publishers with a long-standing commitment to academic works, represented by Bloomsbury Academic.
Both journal articles and academic monographs included in this report were collected and reviewed through manual screening and close reading, rather than by existing text analysis models or machine learning methods. This decision was based on three considerations:
(1) The use of text analysis tools or machine learning methods for data collection and classification, which rely heavily on keywords, can lead to considerable fluctuations in final results due to technical variations such as dictionary selection, word segmentation, and model tuning. Given that the volume of English-language studies on China's governance and diplomacy is not exceptionally large, manual collection and reading present no significant cost disadvantage while maintaining high data accuracy and information fidelity.
(2) The key arguments, analytical frameworks, reasoning logic, and core evidence in many academic articles and monographs can hardly be identified through the statistical relationships among ''fragmented words'' on which text analysis models or machine learning methods depend. Well-trained professional scholars are still able to provide the highest-quality literature analysis and commentary.
(3) This report also serves as an important component of the graduate academic training program at the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China. Through participation in literature review and report writing, graduate students in relevant fields engage in extensive, systematic, and theme-based reading of cutting-edge literature. This not only improves their literature comprehension skills but also helps them systematically construct their own academic knowledge map and closely track the frontiers of English-language academia.
After repeated screening and cross-verification, a total of 371 publications were incorporated into the report's database, including 295 academic articles and 76 monographs, forming the core literature foundation of this study. Among all included literature, approximately 38% focuses on China's governance (domestic affairs), while nearly 62% centers on China's diplomacy.
II. Major Findings of the Report
The report consists of two parts. The first part focuses on English-language studies on issues related to China's governance in 2024, while the second part centers on English-language studies on China's diplomacy in 2024.
(I) China's Governance
Governance is the science and art of maintaining a dynamic balance among state, society, and market. The year 2024 was a critical one marked by profound shifts in the global landscape and the lingering impacts of the pandemic. Against the backdrop of a global economic slowdown and intensified major-power competition, China's socio-economic development and public governance have maintained a relatively stable and positive momentum. This has made China's governance a major focus of English-language academic research in 2024, generating a wealth of in-depth and insightful academic outputs.
English-language studies on China's governance in 2024 mainly concentrate on three areas: the Party-state system and state governance capacity, political-economic interactions, and political communication and political psychology.
Adaptive governance, guided innovation, and Party-building-led governance have emerged as prominent keywords in the relevant research.
Nearly 41% of the literature focuses on China's Party-state system and state governance capacity, approximately 27% examines the relationship between the Chinese government and the market (i.e., political-economic interactions), and the remaining 32% centers on issues related to political communication and political psychology in China. Among journal articles, studies on the Party-state system and state governance capacity account for the largest share, while in academic monographs, investigations into China's political-economic ecosystem and interactions represent the highest proportion.
Party-state System and State Governance Capacity
The resilience of China's political regime has challenged the traditional authoritarian-democratic dualistic analytical framework in Western political science. Especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global economic downturn, and the continuously intensified U.S. strategic competition, economic and technological containment against China, China's socio-economic development, scientific and technological innovation, and public governance have maintained a steady upward momentum, with remarkable achievements attained in certain fields. This has encouraged a growing body of English-language scholarship to break away from established theoretical stereotypes and conduct a more objective and concrete analysis of the evolution of China's state governance system under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and its relevant governance experience.
The main topics covered include:
The formulation of national macro-development strategies and the evolution of ideological discourse;
The actual operation and adaptive adjustment capacity of China's state governance system;
The selection, education, and training mechanisms of the cadre force;
Social governance issues such as social equality and welfare.
Government-Market Relations (Political-Economic Interactions)
The state governance system constitutes the foundation of governance, and the relationship between the government and the market has been a core relationship that China's state governance system has needed to handle since the reform and opening-up. As a socialist country, China's market economic system reform, its unique trajectory of economic growth and poverty alleviation miracle, as well as its recent efforts to promote technological innovation, have all attracted special attention from English-language academia in 2024.
The main topics include: (1) Political-economic dynamics under the planned system, which historically reviews the operating mechanisms and characteristics of China's planned economy before reform and opening-up, and discusses its long-term impact on China's subsequent political and economic transformation; (2) State governance in transition, focusing on core governance issues since reform and opening-up, such as cadre incentives, state-owned enterprise reform, economic growth, consumption, and income inequality; (3) State-led efficiency and tensions, which analyze the guiding role of the state in China's economic development, its achievements, as well as inherent dilemmas and challenges.
Political Communication and Political Psychology
China's economic development, poverty alleviation initiatives, and technological innovation have, to a certain extent, consolidated the performance legitimacy of the Communist Party of China's governance. However, this only reflects the macro working mechanism of regime legitimacy. Political communication and political psychology serve as an important micro-foundation for understanding regime legitimacy and state-society relations.
In 2024, English-language studies on China's political communication and political psychology focused on three areas: the causes and consequences of political trust, political attitudes and values, and information issues in political communication.
These studies have clarified ambiguities in previous research, introduced new perspectives, and provided new insights.
Overall, in terms of research themes, 2024 English-language scholarship on China's Party-state system and state governance capacity, state-market relations, political communication, and political psychology demonstrates rich and diverse research topics and content. Discussions on the interpretation of China's adaptive governance capacity, the successful experiences and challenges of China's economic growth and innovation promotion, the urban-rural dual structure in China's social structure, and the nationalist consensus reflected in online values are particularly illuminating.
Furthermore, many studies have attempted to broaden their research horizons by examining how the shifting global political landscape and the expansion and contraction of the global capitalist system influence China's development strategy choices and performance. They have also recognized the critical role of historical legacies from China's planned economy era in understanding its economic rise after reform and opening-up.
Nevertheless, the above research still exhibits objective limitations in terms of problem awareness, theoretical perspectives, and case selection. In terms of problem awareness, a large body of research still takes the value orientation of liberal democracy, the form of the Western nation-state and its challenges, and the characteristics of representative democratic regimes as the starting point for examining problems in China's governance. In terms of theoretical perspectives, many studies continue to adhere to a ''democracy-authoritarian'' dualistic view of political regimes and a public sphere (government) – private sphere (market, society) dualism to evaluate and discuss China's governance experience.
(II) China's Diplomacy
In 2024, the world witnessed intertwined changes and turbulence, protracted and escalating geopolitical conflicts, intensifying ''decoupling and supply-chain disruption,'' and the accelerated rise of the Global South.
Faced with major changes unseen in a century, China's diplomacy in 2024 upheld fundamental principles while breaking new ground at this historical juncture. It fostered a sound external environment for China's high-quality development and injected much‑needed stability into a turbulent world.
China's diplomacy attracted considerable attention in English-language academia in 2024, yielding numerous noteworthy academic outputs. Overall, papers published in major English academic journals and monographs released by leading academic presses in 2024 mainly centered on three areas: China's strategic security, peripheral security, and economic diplomacy.
Nearly 44% of the literature focuses on China's strategic security issues, approximately 21% examines topics related to China's peripheral security, and the remaining 35% centers on analyses of China's economic diplomacy. Discussions of China's strategic security account for the largest share in both journal articles and academic monographs.
China's Strategic Security
Overseas research on China's strategic security in 2024 can be broadly divided into four thematic categories:
(1) Discussions based on power transition theory, emphasizing that China's rise has returned the world to a bipolar era, and analyzing the geopolitical implications of the so-called Chinese ''regional hegemony.”
(2) Expositions on China's specific policies and their effects in improving external relations and countering U.S. policies toward China.
(3) Analyses of China's military capabilities. On the one hand, existing studies highlight the impact of China's military capabilities and examine the effectiveness of deterrence policies toward China; on the other hand, such studies also focus on the features and implications of military cooperation between China and Russia.
(4) Research on a range of impacts arising from China's participation in security governance. These studies explore not only China's policies in counter‑terrorism and peacekeeping operations but also its efforts to safeguard overseas interests.
In terms of country coverage, existing studies first focus on the cooperation, potential frictions, and conflicts between the United States and its allies in their interactions with China; second, they examine China's efforts to maintain friendly relations with countries in the Middle East; third, they address military cooperation between China and Russia, Iran, and the DPRK.
Substantively, some studies analyze the so‑called ''military alliance'' between China and Russia. In terms of rhetoric, existing studies often intentionally or unintentionally promote the ''China threat theory'', claiming that China's growing military, economic, and technological strength poses a threat to the United States and its allies, as well as to the existing international order. Accordingly, a considerable number of publications offer Western‑centric prescriptions for addressing the so‑called ''China threat.”
For all that, there is no shortage of rational voices in existing discussions of China's strategy. Some studies attempt to approach the issue from historical, cultural, social, and economic perspectives, with the aim of examining China's contributions to maintaining the international order.
China's Peripheral Security
The neighboring region constitutes the primary external environment for China's security and development, and is critically important for China to achieve overall national security. For a long time, China has adhered to a vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security in Asia, promoted security cooperation with neighboring countries, taken an active part in regional and sub-regional security cooperation, deepened relevant cooperation mechanisms, and enhanced strategic mutual trust.
Faced with the volatile international situation and fluctuating China‑US relations, how to sustain and effectively safeguard peripheral security has become a major issue for China's diplomacy. This has naturally attracted close attention from English‑language academia.
This body of literature provides a detailed review and discussion of the formation and influence of the historical tributary system in China, as well as China's political, economic, and social relations with major neighboring sub‑regions, namely Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, South Asia, and Central Asia. Relevant studies have achieved progress in deepening research on China's peripheral diplomacy and have well reflected the impact of the continuity of China's historical traditions on contemporary China's peripheral diplomacy.
China's Economic Diplomacy
China has become the world's second-largest economy after the United States, and the direction of its economic diplomacy has drawn extensive attention from the international community. English-language scholarship in 2024 has paid particular attention to the dynamics of China's economic diplomacy in the following two areas:
(1) Against the backdrop of intensifying U.S. strategic competition toward China, the new trends in Sino‑U.S. economic and trade relations, the domestic and international political‑economic foundations underlying their evolution, the roles of U.S. allies and China's partner countries in Sino‑U.S. economic and trade competition, and the spillover effects of Sino‑U.S. competition on the economic and trade landscape of relevant countries and regions;
(2) With the steady progress of global initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative, as well as the rapid development of China's technological capabilities, the strategies and effects of China's engagement in global development and technology governance through economic diplomacy.
Overall, 2024 English-language scholarship on China's diplomacy covers three major areas: China's strategic security amid intensified U.S. competition toward China, peripheral diplomacy focused on regional security, and economic diplomacy. Each area contains a rich set of subfields, clearly demonstrating the diverse perspectives in English-language studies of China's diplomacy. The theoretical frameworks and methodological tools employed have also shown a clear trend toward diversification, and their findings leave room for ongoing debate and critical analysis on many issues.
In terms of literature critique and theoretical discussion, 2024 English-language research on China's diplomacy still exhibits relatively obvious flaws and deficiencies in its theoretical foundations, analytical frameworks, and research object selection. Theoretically, most relevant studies remain unable to break free from a West-centric perspective. Analytically, the majority continue to rely on the ''China threat theory'' and ''China expansion theory,'' which have been falsified by real-world experience. In terms of research object selection, due to the implicit biases embedded in their theoretical and analytical frameworks, a considerable number of studies display clear selection bias.