Limited Rebranding: Status Signaling, Multiple Audiences, and the Incoherence of China's Grand Strategy

This dissertation provides a theoretical framework to analyze how a rising great power could signal its preferred status in the international hierarchy. Contrary to the familiar story of status conflict in power transitions, the status signaling of rising powers is a more complicated matter than is typically assumed. China, as a rising power, does not always maximize its status, and China is sending seemingly contradictory status signals. Why does a rising China send lower status signal? Why does an authoritarian China implement a seemingly incoherent grand strategy? This dissertation aims to provide a two-level theory of status signaling in international politics and to explain the seemingly incoherent grand strategy of an emerging world power, China. Status signaling is a special type of signaling in international politics that aims to demonstrate what kind of standing a state wants to have in the international society. China provides a useful set of cases for exploring the plausibility of status signaling arguments in international politics. This dissertation focuses on three "transformative moments" in Chinese foreign policy, including China’s aircraft carrier building, its initiatives during the Asian financial crisis of 1997, and its responses to the global financial crisis in 2008. In each case, the project analyzes China’s status signaling and role choices, including the trade-offs between status and responsibility, as well as the competing expectations from domestic and international audiences. The research design includes case studies, interviews, and content analysis. This study will contribute to the scholarly and policy debates on rising powers, grand strategy, and international order.