Principles and Practices in Chinese Foreign Policymaking: Implications for its South Korea Policies.

This article explains principles and practices in China's foreign policy decisionmaking-- and their implications for its policy toward South Korea. The author argues that more serious attention should be paid to "democratic centralism" as a guiding principle of decision-making, even in foreign affairs. This principle favors consensus-building, coordination, and compromise in policymaking. As a result, China often suffers time-wastage and inertia on non-routine issues in its policymaking, which is quite different from the image of the top-down model. Reflecting the structure of Chinese policymaking, China's foreign policies are more likely to be risk averse, conservative, and prone to following status-quo policies. China prefers the status quo to renovation of its Korea policy. Instead of taking any new initiatives, China's foreign policy toward the Korean peninsula is likely to adhere to its current policy priority of maintaining stability on the Peninsula. It is also noteworthy that China may gradually depart from its slow and reactive foreign policies to more proactive ones. As China becomes more capable of processing non-routine issues, while making them routine ones, more proactive policies will be realized although the gradual nature of Chinese decision-making is expected to remain intact for the time-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]