China’s Conflict Behaviour: Domestic and International Drivers

The article analyses China’s conflict behaviour from 1949 to 2014. The study aims to further our understanding of the country’s participation in international conflicts and disputes by presenting the first attempt in the scholarship at a systematic quantitative analysis of China’s conflict behaviour. A large-N analysis is carried out through a series of logistic regression models to measure the impact of international and domestic factors. The results of the analysis show that China’s conflict behaviour is strongly affected by international factors such as the power gap between China and target states and the presence of territorial claims; at the same time, domestic conditions—intraparty struggle and regime vulnerability—can mitigate the inclination towards the use of force.