Offering an authoritative Chinese perspective, Fu’s characterization of international order also highlights the ways in which China’s vision of order has reflected concerns about US power and ideas. In the 1990s, Jiang’s call for a new international order and new security concept contained what are now quite familiar terms that capture Beijing’s concern about the role and influence of the US in the world, such as hegemony, power politics, a Cold War mentality and bloc politics. More recently, Chinese commentary on the community of common destiny and the three global initiatives are grounded in a clear counter-US framing that reflects similar concerns. As shown in Figure 1, Chinese perceptions of US hostility – as seen in the use of select keywords in articles in the People’s Daily, the newspaper of the CPC’s Central Committee – have increased significantly since 2018. In February 2023, for example, the day before China released a concept paper on the new Global Security Initiative, the Xinhua news agency released a lengthy report, entitled ‘US Hegemony and Its Perils’. It outlined US threats to global peace and stability that China’s initiative would address, thereby directly linking China’s vision of order with its concerns about the US. The September 2023 white paper on the community of common destiny was also framed directly in terms of growing global dissatisfaction with the existing international order and clear criticism of the US role in the world. The only possible way to interpret the white paper is as a desire to establish an alternative vision to a US-led order and justify China’s efforts to increase its international influence.
The counter-US framing in the community of common destiny and the related global initiatives serves several purposes. One is to delegitimize the US as a global leader to justify China’s own proposed vision, thereby weakening the ideational basis of the existing order by sowing doubts about Washington’s reliability as a partner. Delegitimization of the leading international role of the US is a key element of China’s approach to the rivalry between the two countries. Another purpose of the counter-US framing is to deflect growing US pressure and criticism of China as a threat to the international order by offering an alternative narrative about their rivalry. That narrative blames the US for the deterioration in ties and its global consequences, and portrays Washington – not Beijing – as the greatest threat to international order.
Pursuing the vision through deep diplomatic engagement
In pursuit of its vision of international order, Beijing uses all tools of statecraft and it has accumulated significant capabilities across them to do so, especially in the last decade.
Within the Asia-Pacific region, China uses all these tools – military, economic, diplomatic and information-related. Further afield, it relies most heavily on the last three. The economic tools extend far beyond the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), though the BRI is a prominent example, and include extensive trade, investment and financial ties with other states. The information tools include public diplomacy and persistent efforts to insert China’s preferred diplomatic slogans and language linked to its vision of order into diplomatic documents such as joint statements, as well as into UN resolutions and programmes.
China’s deep diplomatic engagement with the world enables it to pursue its vision of order through a latticework of international relationships. The first part of this engagement consists of bilateral relationships, given the intensive nature of China’s diplomatic activity and the robust presence of its diplomats in all states except those that recognize Taiwan and therefore do not maintain diplomatic ties with Beijing. Although more than a diplomatic endeavour, the BRI is an important example of China’s active bilateralism, in which it seeks to use infrastructure funding and direct investment to boost ties and increase its influence in the developing world.
As part of its approach to bilateral relationships, China has avoided pursuing military alliances or signing mutual defence pacts to promote its vision of order. In fact, it has not signed a mutual defence pact since doing so with North Korea in 1961. However, ‘partnerships’ with other states – defined variously as strategic, comprehensive strategic and all-weather strategic – play a significant role, especially with countries such as Pakistan and Russia with which China has close and extensive ties in all domains. These partnerships are variants of Beijing’s bilateralism and are tools to deepen ties with states that it prioritizes to promote its interests. As part of its ‘comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination’ with Russia, for example, China has provided significant diplomatic and economic support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and for Russian defence industries.
The second part of China’s deep diplomatic engagement consists of its membership in regional and minilateral organizations. It participates in an increasing number of these, some of which, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), it helped to establish. In Asia, China belongs to and seeks a leading role in regional organizations and cooperation mechanisms that include the Lancang-Mekong Initiative and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia. Beyond the Asia-Pacific, it is a founding member of the BRICS group of regional powers (now the ‘BRICS plus’) and it seeks to exercise leadership
within it too.
Institutionalized interactions with regional organizations of which it is not a member and with regions beyond its own form the third part of China’s deep diplomatic engagement. These interactions could be described as ‘bi-multilateralism’ or ‘n+1’ platforms, as they formalize engagement with regional organizations as well as with their members. This can take several forms, such as direct and formal interactions with regional organizations, such as China’s dialogue with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (the ASEAN ‘10+1’). Beijing has similar institutionalized engagement with the European Union and the African Union. Another form of such interactions consists of dialogue mechanisms with other regions in the world, such as the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation, the China–Latin America and Caribbean States Forum, and the China–Arab States Cooperation Forum.
If no organization or mechanism exists for a group of states with which it wants to engage, China will create one.
If no organization or mechanism exists for a group of states with which it wants to engage, China will create one. One recent example is the China–Central Asian Summit (C+C5); earlier ones include the 17+1 grouping between Central and Eastern European states and China (now reduced to 14+1 following the withdrawal of three states). In the 2010s, China tried but failed to create similar groupings with European states, including with France, Germany and the UK; with the Mediterranean states; and with the Nordic states.
What is notable about China’s institutionalized engagement with, or participation in, different regional and minilateral organizations and mechanisms is that they are all forums in which the US is not a member or participant. This allows Beijing to shape their agendas in ways that maximize its interests and to pursue its priorities without direct US pushback.
With the exception of the ‘BRICS plus’, China’s diplomatic engagement tends not to use transregional mechanisms (that is, across multiple regions), but it often pursues sub-regional ones. For example, Beijing has dialogue mechanisms with Arab League members through the China–Arab Summit and with some members of the Arab League in a dialogue with the Gulf Cooperation Council. China has pursued engagement with the EU but, as noted above, has also pursued smaller groupings with select European states. In Central Asia, China engages regional states through the SCO as well as the more recent C+C5.
The last part of China’s deep diplomatic engagement is with international organizations that any sovereign state can join. The most important is the UN because of the principle of sovereign equality embedded in its charter, which places China on an equal footing with the US and allows it to rally support from many of the countries and regions with which it pursues the deep diplomatic engagement described above, especially in the developing world. China holds a critical position in the UN as a permanent member of the Security Council and uses the UN to advocate what it calls ‘true multilateralism’, which it contrasts with the US use of military alliances. It also uses its role to weaken the emphasis on liberal values and human rights in the UN and to strengthen the principle of absolute sovereignty.
China’s approach to rivalry with the US
China’s approach to this rivalry emphasizes balancing US power and diminishing Washington’s ability to check Beijing’s growing influence and its pursuit of its vision of order. The ways in which Beijing seeks to balance US power are multifaceted and comprehensive.
A primary objective for China is to further enhance its hard power through continued military modernization, so that the People’s Liberation Army can fight and win what it calls ‘informatized local wars’ and become a ‘world-class’ military by 2050. These modernization efforts emphasize a potential conflict over Taiwan, but they are also shifting the balance of military power in the Asia-Pacific. China seeks to enhance its military presence in other parts of the world too by increasing cooperation with other militaries through joint exercises and training and, more gradually, by establishing overseas bases.
Next, a key aim is to strengthen its economic self-reliance and indigenous innovation to reduce China’s vulnerability to external shocks and targeted sanctions. China also emphasizes the development of self-reliance in the frontier technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that are seen as critical to increasing its national wealth and thus its influence in the coming decades – such technologies are also central to enhancing Chinese military capabilities. Part of this effort includes securing China’s supply chains for critical technologies, such as advanced semiconductors, and enhancing indigenous innovation in areas such as biotechnology, quantum computing and artificial intelligence.
Relatedly, Beijing seeks to increase other states’ economic dependence on China by deepening trade, investment and financial relations. Doing so raises the costs for countries to challenge Chinese interests and can increase policy alignment between China and these states.
Diplomatically, China will continue its efforts to delegitimize the US as a provider of global public goods and source of stability in the international system. The ‘governance deficits’ that Beijing seeks to address through the community of common destiny and the three global initiatives are framed to tap dissatisfaction with the current order, and with Washington, in many parts of the world – and at least superficially to position China as a source of possible remedies. Delegitimization also includes efforts to discredit and divide US alliances, thereby weakening the US international position.
China will also further deepen ties with Russia. This is intended to enable China to concentrate its strategic resources against the US without needing to focus on securing its own northern border.
China will also further deepen ties with Russia. This is intended to enable China to concentrate its strategic resources against the US without needing to focus on securing its own northern border. Although Beijing and Moscow have quite different views of international order, Russia’s confrontation with the US diverts some US strategic attention from China, giving the latter more breathing space while also making available certain advanced military technologies and relatively cheaper commodities such as oil and natural gas. As stated explicitly for the first time in their May 2024 joint statement, China and Russia declared their intent to cooperate in many areas to weaken US power.
China seeks as much as possible to divide Europe, or parts of Europe, to prevent it from pursuing closer ties with the US or US-favoured policies that target China. Beijing frequently calls for Europe to exercise its ‘strategic autonomy’, which is another way of asking it to reduce its alignment with the US and its support for US policies such as technology restrictions against China. However, Beijing’s deepening ties with Moscow and support for Russia’s economy and defence industrial base during the invasion of Ukraine have harmed China’s image in the region and undercut its ability to divide Europe.
Elsewhere around the world, China will deepen and improve ties in all domains with Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa. These regions are the main targets of the three global initiatives, and they were previously the regions where the BRI was most widely embraced and implemented.
Finally, among international institutions, China seeks to underscore the centrality of the UN and, within it, an absolute notion of sovereignty to counter more liberal conceptions of partial sovereignty.
Although China is unlikely to fundamentally alter this basic approach to its rivalry with the US, how China may respond to the policies of the second Trump administration bears consideration. On the one hand, immediately after Trump’s election in November 2024, Beijing indicated a desire to maintain stability in its ties with Washington, underscoring four ‘red lines’ that the US should not cross. On the other hand, China is prepared to respond vigorously – and much more proactively than during the first Trump administration – to what it views as challenges from the US. To prepare for increased tariffs and other potential economic sanctions, China has developed a suite of policy tools such as export controls to impose costs on US firms and has endeavoured to boost growth at home and deepen economic ties with third countries. More generally, China is poised to exploit tensions that might arise between the US and other countries in response to Trump’s economic and diplomatic policies, giving China an opportunity to weaken US alliances, divide Europe and further boost China’s standing in the developing world. These tensions may also make it even easier for China to highlight the appeal of Xi’s community of common destiny by offering it as a remedy for the instability and disorder which ‘America first’ policies may cause in the international community.
Conclusion
China’s vision of international order in the near to medium term reflects continued pursuit of Westphalian principles under the banner of the community of common destiny for mankind. Its pursuit of this vision has intensified in the past decade under Xi Jinping and is now intertwined with the US–China rivalry, as the country seeks to balance US power and maximize its international influence in an increasingly competitive context. Global implementation of this vision relies on all instruments of statecraft, but especially on deepening diplomatic engagement with the rest of the world.
