World Economic and Political Bi-weekly Forum：Professor Qin Yaqing of China Foreign Affairs University- ‘Classical Thought and Modern International Relations’

The seventh World Economic and Political Bi-weekly Forum was held on March 18, 2021. Professor Qin Yaqing of China Foreign Affairs University gave a lecture on ‘Classical Thought and Modern International Relations’. The forum was chaired by Yang Yuan, director of the Division of International?Politics Theory of IWEP. Zhang Yuyan, Academician of CASS, the director of IWEP and Chief Expert of NIGS, delivered a welcome speech at the beginning. Feng Weijiang, Deputy Secretary-General of NIGS/Deputy Director of IWEP, researchers of the institute and students of UCASS attended the lecture. In addition, nearly 800 audience participated the lecture online.

Professor Qin Yaqing argues that classical ideas connote great potential for theoretical construction, and theories of social sciences could be inspired by classical ideas. Western international relations theories sprouted from its own philosophical thoughts. The three main international relations theoretical schools—realism, liberalism and constructivism—were all established under the influence of classical Western thoughts. Professor Qin Yaqing focused on anarchy, interest, and power, which are the ideological origins of the core assumptions of the realist theory, and then pointed out that Chinese classical thoughts connote rich resource that can be used to construct and innovate the theories of international relations. The conceptualization, abstraction and generalization of Chinese traditional culture and philosophical thoughts can form a logically self-consistent Chinese theory of international relations. At the end of the lecture, Professor Qin Yaqing had a lively interaction with the on-site and online audience.