| Summary: | This thesis examines the ways in which sovereignty was wielded as a concept and acted out as a practice by Chinse political and diplomatic elites, as well as by the leaders of its Communist movement, during the Republican Era (1912–1949) within the context of the broader evolving heterarchical international legal and political order. Through a series of four detailed historical case studies and adopting an approach drawn from the English School tradition, I argue that, because of its liminal yet privileged positioning within the international system of the period, Republican China paradoxically became an important generative site for sovereignty-related practices and ideas, as its political and diplomatic elites challenged the boundaries of the international order at a time when core concepts within that order were in a state of flux and open to reinterpretation and redefinition; and show how they pushed the limits of that order through a mutually constitutive process in order to advance their policy objectives in a range of areas, from territoriality to international status, with implications both for the future of Chinese statehood and for the development of the international system. In doing so, I aim to contribute to debates about the development of the international system during the inter-war era, as well as to contribute to the literature on Republican China’s foreign relations.
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