An Analytical Framework to Understand the Outward Expansion of the Chinese Hegemony

The rise of China and the change it brings to the international configuration, alongside its worldwide engagement, has opened up the debate in the IR field about China becoming a hegemon and whether its positioning as a rising power challenges the current US global hegemony. Against the backdrop of this debate, a question is posed regarding a possible process of outward expansion of the Chinese hegemony, and why and how it occurs. This paper attempts to provide an analytical framework based on some elements of the critical theory that can be considered as an appropriate and unexplored approach for understanding the subject of China's hegemony. Thus, through the conjunction of different concepts addressed by the Gramscian and Neo-Gramscian perspectives, an analytical framework is constructed by combining three categories of analysis: a) alliance between hegemonic classes, b) coercion and consent, c) ideology and institutions. In order to illustrate the framework, some insights of the presence of China in Latin America will be presented. The developed framework constitutes a contribution to t he IR field by providing additional explanations about China's rise; by inquiring a possible process of outward expansion of its hegemony; and by offering a different analysis from that of orthodox approaches traditionally focused on state actors and its dominance based on asymmetric economic and military resources.