Since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, India has positioned itself as a leading power and adopted a multialignment foreign policy, advocating reformed multilateralism as an emerging power, while engaging in valuesbased diplomacy with the United States and the West as a democracy. The multialignment diplomacy reflects India’s multiple roles and behavior in foreign affairs. The Modi’s administration has positioned India’s national role as a leading power, a regional power, an emerging power and a democracy. Among them, the label “leading power” represents India’s strategic aspiration, the “regional power” serves as the basis for its diplomatic activities, while the “emerging power” and the “democracy” function as instrumental roles in the India’s multialignment diplomacy. By having the analysis of India’s role practices in BRICS and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), it is evident that India exhibits a degree of role adaptability as the members status of “emerging power” and “democracy”, which aligns with the basic norms of these two mechanisms. Therefore, India’s participation in these mechanisms has been generally cooperative. However, varying degrees of role conflict between India and the two mechanisms have led India to adopt a strategy of limited cooperation. In the context of BRICS, the conflicts related to distinct roles within BRICS and the harmonization of national interests with international responsibilities are generally manageable through dialogue. Conversely, the fundamental role conflicts exist with the United States, Japan, and Australia in terms of role positioning, the construction of international order and strategic objectives. These irreconcilable role conflicts are the primary constraints on India’s cooperative prospects with the QUAD. In essence, the multialignment diplomacy is to achieve the ultimate goal of India’s emergence as a great power by playing different roles between different powers and adopting a balanced and flexible engagement strategy.

Constructing creative security theories will benefit the construction of China’s domestic security system. Discussing in-depth theories is the precondition and foundation for theoretical innovation. A wide range of literature have applied ontological security theory to analyzing the international practice. Scholars have elucidated ontological security theory’s contribution to International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis and Security Study. Nonetheless, some debates and problems emerged in theorizing ontological security, including the referent object, achieving approaches, and the causal mechanism between ontological security and foreign policy, which limited the theorical applications. This article tries to bridge the gaps in the theorization of ontological security by reconstructing the theory, which draws inspiration from the historical sociology and interactionist role theory. It discusses the mechanism that national identity has been formed in the two interactive domains between domestic society and international society to settle the ontological debates. It establishes an analytical framework of the approach to achieving ontological security to clarify the mechanism that ontological security seeking drives policies and, simultaneously, foreign policies affect the achievement of ontological security. It further discloses the constitutive relations between ontological security and foreign policies. The reconstruction of ontological security not only responses the critique to the theory, but also strengthens the theory’s explanatory power to empirical analysis. This article applies the analytical framework to an explanation of Japan’s foreign policy choices in terms of the Diaoyu Islands issues with China. In the two cries triggered by the Diaoyu Islands issues, Japan’s perception of national identity and its expectations for China’s role have been changed. Japan’s ontological security has influenced its policies towards China and its national security strategies. Although the ontological security theory has its applicable conditions and boundary, the theoretical reconstruction is of great significance for theoretical research of security studies and international studies.