This book critically rethinks the dominant narratives around the so-called ‘liberal international’ / ‘rules-based’ order, by examining how China discursively engages with, and mirrors, the very hegemonic order it contests. Moving beyond the commonplace representation of China as a paradoxically ‘revisionist’ yet occasionally ‘compliant’ power, it aargues that what appears contradictory is, in fact, a coherent counterhegemonic strategy rooted in discursive rearticulation rather than outright rejection. Using a Gramscian analytical lens, the book disarticulates the ideologically fused concept of the ‘liberal international order’, revealing it as a hegemonic construct that equates liberalism with order and opposition with illiberal disorder. It demonstrates how China’s international practices expose the ideological and relational structures underpinning liberal hegemony. Rather than simply resisting liberal norms, China mirrors and re-articulates them in an effort to position itself as a more legitimate global leader. This book challenges IR orthodoxy by examining hegemonic representations, and by foregrounding the role of the global South - not as a passive recipient, but as an active co-producer of order. In doing so, it raises provocative questions about whether liberal hegemony is tied to Western dominance at all, or whether it may survive its unmaking by being mirrored into new forms.
