Book Project

"Of Words and Deeds: Preemptive Legitimation, Material Actions, and China's Strategic Behaviors since 1949" (First Draft; Expected: Spring 2026)

What types of strategic actions are predictable from a state’s official rhetoric—and why? Understanding these motivations is essential to assessing how much information states can infer about others’ intentions based on their rhetoric. This book project addresses these questions by examining the 70-year history of the People’s Republic of China—today’s most consequential rising power—amidst intensifying U.S.-China competition across multiple issue domains. Drawing on extensive Chinese-language archival materials, I introduce the concept of preemptive legitimation, a rhetorical strategy through which states justify military coercion to third-party audiences in advance. The purpose is to manage expectations and reduce the risk of third-party military intervention in bilateral disputes. By contrast, states have less incentive to justify economic or diplomatic sanctions ahead of time, as such actions are unlikely to provoke military counter-coalitions. To evaluate this theoretical claim, I constructed an original Chinese-language lexicon to identify rhetorical legitimation across different policy domains. Consistent with the theory, my analysis of 26 foreign disputes and crises involving China reveals that only military actions—not economic or diplomatic sanctions—are reliably foreshadowed in its rhetoric. This project provides a novel framework that moves beyond the conventional bluster and hands-tying paradigms, offering new insight into the predictive power of state rhetoric in international relations.