Theory and Empirical Strategy

Chapter 3 focuses on theory and empirical strategy. The chapter defines status and situates it against oft-interchanged concepts like honor, prestige, and reputation, and identifies gaps in the status literature. The chapter then explains when China is most status sensitive—i.e. that status drivers can trump other concerns regarding intervention—when there are two components. First, when China’s peer groups are able to exact social costs or social benefits on China by way of social influence. China’s peer groups are most able to do so when they are cohesive with no significant defectors from the peer group, unified around a single policy position, and willing to exact social costs on China for not executing their policy prescription. With these conditions met, peer groups have narrowed and defined policy options for China, so China can clearly understand what the peer group expectations are. A second component is the presence of a status trigger. Status triggers heighten or accentuate China’s pre-existing status concerns by emphasizing China’s isolation from its peer groups, making China more susceptible to status pressures. Status triggers are either speech acts that draw a contemporary parallel to a low status time in China’s foreign policy or attacks on China’s high-profile status-rewarding events. The chapter specifies why the great powers and the Global South are China’s peer groups for intervention, and debunks the popular assumption that Russia stands as China’s peer in the context of intervention.