Abstract

This paper is designed to explore basic ideas which have dominated Chinese foreign policy-making and their implications for the East Asia Region, especially for the future of the Korean peninsula in the next decade. For this purpose, the paper attempts to portray how China would appear domestically or what direction China would move in its external relations. The conclusions are that, although strategic thinking has been important in China's relations with great powers, societal, ideological and historical factors have been felt much stronger in its foreign behaviors, and that the future of Korea is heavily dependent on China's perception of the Korean peninsula in this regard.