China On The World Stage

The twenty-first century has been marked by great shifts of power in trade, wealth, and political discourse. China is at the crux of this change, and has quickly become a power of immeasurable influence. However, it is still unclear how China's rise will rebalance the international order. Originally published in Foreign Affairs, the preeminent magazine on foreign policy and international relations, the essays in this book assess the geopolitical consequences of China's rise to power, the development and environmental challenges China faces at home, and its relations with major players like the United States, Russia, and Taiwan. Taken together, the articles portray a global system in deep flux. How individuals and countries adapt is likely to define conflict and peace for the foreseeable future.

An economic and military superpower with 20 percent of the world’s population, China has the wherewithal to transform the international system. Xi Jinping’s bold calls for China to “lead in the reform of the global governance system” suggest that he has just such an ambition. But how does he plan to realize it? And what does it mean for the rest of the world? In this compelling book, Elizabeth Economy reveals China’s ambitious new strategy to reclaim the country’s past glory and reshape the geostrategic landscape in dramatic new ways. Xi’s vision is one of Chinese centrality on the global stage, in which the mainland has realized its sovereignty claims over Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the South China Sea, deepened its global political, economic, and security reach through its grand-scale Belt and Road Initiative, and used its leadership in the United Nations and other institutions to align international norms and values, particularly around human rights, with those of China. It is a world radically different from that of today. The international community needs to understand and respond to the great risks, as well as the potential opportunities, of a world rebuilt by China.

The global implications of China's rise as a global actor In 2005, a senior official in the George W. Bush administration expressed the hope that China would emerge as a “responsible stakeholder” on the world stage. A dozen years later, the Trump administration dramatically shifted course, instead calling China a “strategic competitor” whose actions routinely threaten U.S. interests. Both assessments reflected an underlying truth: China is no longer just a “rising” power. It has emerged as a truly global actor, both economically and militarily. Every day its actions affect nearly every region and every major issue, from climate change to trade, from conflict in troubled lands to competition over rules that will govern the uses of emerging technologies. To better address the implications of China's new status, both for American policy and for the broader international order, Brookings scholars conducted research over the past two years, culminating in a project: Global China: Assessing China's Growing Role in the World. The project is intended to furnish policy makers and the public with hard facts and deep insights for understanding China's regional and global ambitions. The initiative draws not only on Brookings's deep bench of China and East Asia experts, but also on the tremendous breadth of the institution's security, strategy, regional studies, technological, and economic development experts. Areas of focus include the evolution of China's domestic institutions; great power relations; the emergence of critical technologies; Asian security; China's influence in key regions beyond Asia; and China's impact on global governance and norms. Global China: Assessing China's Growing Role in the World provides the most current, broad-scope, and fact-based assessment of the implications of China's rise for the United States and the rest of the world.

The twenty-first century has been marked by great shifts of power in trade, wealth, and political discourse. China is at the crux of this change, and has quickly become a power of immeasurable influence. However, it is still unclear how China's rise will rebalance the international order. Originally published in Foreign Affairs, the preeminent magazine on foreign policy and international relations, the essays in this book assess the geopolitical consequences of China's rise to power, the development and environmental challenges China faces at home, and its relations with major players like the United States, Russia, and Taiwan. Taken together, the articles portray a global system in deep flux. How individuals and countries adapt is likely to define conflict and peace for the foreseeable future.

In a sweeping account of China's growing prominence on the international stage, the author admits that China has a broad influence throughout the world, but argues that the nation falls short of being a true world power.

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC-ND license. Ambassadors are a kind of vehicle and bellwether for globalization. These diplomatic envoys serve as pivotal contact points between nations across a wide range of fields, from economics and culture to health and the environment. The special group of ambassadors in this book – those based in Beijing – are at the forefront of what for many countries is one of their most important bilateral relationships, as well one of the most striking and consequential aspects of global affairs in the 21st century: the rise of China on the world stage. This book aims to present an overview of China and the world from diverse angles. It brings together essays by ambassadors to China on a range of bilateral and multilateral issues, including trade and investment, regional economic cooperation, sustainable development, technology and innovation, and entrepreneurship. Given their familiarity with China and extensive international experience, the insights of these ambassadors are useful for policymakers, academics, entrepreneurs, students, and anyone trying to make sense of our rapidly changing world.

Assessments of China's importance on the world stage usually focus on a single dimension of China's increasing power, rather than on the multiple sources of China's rise, including its economic might and the continuing modernization of its military. This book offers multiple analytical perspectives—constructivist, liberal, neorealist—on the significance of the many dimensions of China's regional and global influence. Distinguished authors consider the likelihood of conflict and peaceful accommodation as China grows ever stronger. They look at the changing position of China "from the inside": How do Chinese policymakers evaluate the contemporary international order and what are the regional and global implications of that worldview? The authors also address the implications of China's increasing power for Chinese policymaking and for the foreign policies of Korea, Japan, and the United States.