Presentist or Cultural Memory: C hinese Nationalism as Constraint on B eijing's Foreign Policy Making

According to conventional wisdom, the C hinese collective memory constructed within the enterprise of state‐driven nationalism largely conforms to the presentist view of memory studies. The memory‐based legitimacy of the C hinese Communist Party ( CCP ), however, is premised upon some basic assumptions embedded in the indigenous political culture. In the consumption of the collective memory of foreign aggression and invasion, the memory‐encoded social norms have grounded the domestic expectations of the state's diplomatic behavior, which can both enable and constrain the deliberation and execution of Beijing's foreign policy. Due to C hina's fragile domestic politics and the resurgence of popular nationalism, collective memory manipulated by the authoritarian regime to enhance its legitimacy has become an endogenous variable of the CCP's diplomatic decision making and has led to C hina's paradoxical performance on the international stage. The rationality of the party‐state on the foreign relations front has been bounded by the historical institution of collective memory.