Revisiting Our Understanding of Major Power Diplomacy: The Causes and Consequences of High-Level Diplomatic Visits with China, 1960–2020

Abstract What are the causes and consequences of high-level visits with China? How much do we understand about major power diplomacy? This research note complements the recent scholarship by introducing a new dataset on high-level diplomatic visits from and to China between 1960 and 2020, with data on visits conducted by leaders and foreign ministers. We use this substantially improved dataset to test our theory on the effect of leader visits with China on the regime survival of the host countries. We find that leader visits with China are effective for prolonging the regime survival of countries most susceptible to Chinese influence, while no clear effects are found for democratic regimes. We next test a theory on the asymmetry in the granting of an audience with the leader during foreign minister visits: we argue that as China’s global power grew over time since 2000, Chinese leaders have been less likely to grant an audience to a visiting foreign minister from another country while visiting Chinese foreign ministers have been more likely to be granted an audience with the leader of the host country.