Abstract: The paper explores discursive power and related concepts (institutional power, normative power, epistemic power) as an important part of contemporary PRC foreign strategy. As Westphalian identity carries certain risks for Beijing, China is actively trying to reconceptualize its identity through the development of epistemic power, its main manifestation being the emergence of the Chinese IR school. China’s two main strategies of interaction with the Western IR theory are (1) transcending its parochiality through inclusion of Chinese concepts and research methods and (2) creating radical alternatives to Western IR theory. At a more fundamental level of theorizing about non-Western IR, the former strategy is broadly aligned with the project of “global IR” and the latter with a decolonial/postcolonial approach to IR. Decolonial hermeneutics allows for revealing the main shortcomings of “global IR” and the underlying epistemic culture, as well as for examining problems that arise from China's accumulation of discursive power. Based on the analysis, we can conclude that there are three potential strategies of the PRC: Westphalian discursivity, Westphalian discursivity with Chinese characteristics, and critical discursivity. The first two strategies can potentially lead China into the trap of discursive power: trying to resist Western discursive aggression through accumulation of discursive power, Beijing begins to internalize power structures and narratives inherent in the Western political model or romanticize alternative systems for the reproduction of power in imperial China, hence reinforcing international suspicions regarding its true intentions and taking a less advantageous strategic position. The paper proposes a number of ways out of this trap (development of cooperation with countries of the global South, interaction with their epistemic cultures, critical rethinking of modern Chinese concepts of international relations).

Keywords: global international relations, discursive power trap, Chinese IR theory, dichotomy of identity, colonial house of IR theory, non-Western IR theory, decolonial theory, epistemic power, discursive power, foreign strategy

Abstract: The creation of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt in 1928, and the success of the Shiite Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, led by the Khomeini movement, are important events in the twentieth century for the Muslim world and the Middle East. The role of these two movements is clear and important in all the historical events that have taken place in the Middle East over the past 60 years. The two movements have converged in some ideology since the 1950s, despite the existence of a Sunni-Shiite conflict 1,300 years ago. In this article, we will try to answer the question of why there are strong relations between the Sunni movement and the Shiite movement by telling about the historical events between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Khomeini revolution in Iran, using an analytical approach to the events that took place in the Middle East that united these two movements, such as the Khomeini Revolution of 1979 The Iranian-Iraqi War of 1980-1988, the Palestinian crisis and the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. We will also clarify the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Turkish-Qatari-Iranian triangle. The article explains the long-standing relations between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian revolution, and focuses on the continuation of these relations to the present, which has influenced the situation in the Arab region, especially in the Arab Republic of Egypt. This article proves the relationship between this group and Iran, even though Iran is a Shiite state and the Brotherhood is a Sunni group. The emphasis was placed on the fact that these relations had a great negative role on the events in Egypt after the Egyptian revolution of 2011, as well as on the form of relations in the Persian Gulf region with the union of Iran, Turkey and the State of Qatar.

Keywords: Qatar, Turkey, Middle East, Mohamed Morsy, color revolutions, The Egyptian Revolution, The Iranian Islamic Revolution, Egypt, Muslim Brothers, Iran