Geopolitics

Conclusion: A New Map?

Nadege Rolland


This is chapter 5 of the report “Mapping China’s Strategic Space.” To read the full report, download the PDF.

 

After examining a 40-year discussion involving a multitude of voices, as this report has endeavored to do, it appears with greater clarity that the significance of “strategic space” rests not so much in revealing Beijing’s plans for repeating old models of empire building, engaging in territorial conquest, or establishing overseas colonies, but rather in exposing how consumed its strategic and political elites have been with the idea of China’s return to the center of the world. While thinking about space, what Chinese analysts really talk about are changes in the structure of the international system that they believe will accompany China’s ascension as the world’s dominant power. Drawing the mental map of the realm that these thinkers believe China needs to ensure its long-term success is therefore a useful device to assess the extent of its leadership’s global ambitions.

Although most writings examined in this report fiercely deny any hegemonic aspiration on China’s part, this is in fact what would appear as the heart of the matter. In the words of a Renmin University professor, “Our question is whether China can become a global hegemon like the United States, and whether it is necessary for China to become a global hegemon similar to the United States.”1 Lessons learned from the American historical experience may not be entirely replicable—especially those about invading other countries—but some may serve as an “inspiration” to China, notes a senior official of the Central Party School’s Institute for International Strategic Studies.2 As exemplified by the 2021 China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) magnum opus on the rise and fall of great powers, both triumphant and cautionary tales of past rising powers continue to feed Chinese analyses eagerly seeking to find the secret ingredients required to become a successful hegemon.3 The fascination of prominent nationalist thinkers such as Jiang Shigong with empire is also symptomatic of an ongoing intellectual quest for the best course to organize and manage “the whole world” and accompany the historic return of the world’s center of gravity “to Eurasia and to the Eastern world.”4 Sifting through an abundant intellectual production, two intertwined conclusions also appear prominently: that China’s expansion is inevitable as a result of its growing power and interests, and that external pushback and efforts to contain this expansion are to be expected. As long as China remains the main contender, the “irreconcilable” nature of the China-U.S. rivalry is “doomed to perpetuate the historical curse of great powers’ struggle for hegemony.”5

Having reached its peak extension in 2013, the mental map of China’s strategic space has since been stable. The United States’ entry into great-power competition mode, a global pandemic, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have not markedly affected the expansionist imaginations of Chinese strategic elites. The space they consider vital to their country’s survival and development has not shrunk as a result of the measures taken by the United States to deter China’s maritime aggressiveness and limit its access to technologies, nor as a consequence of its own significant domestic economic challenges. To the contrary, these latest events are used as intellectual justifications for continued efforts to push outward.

What explains this absence of change mainly rests on a fundamentally unaltered strategic judgment about both U.S. and Chinese power. Although seemingly showing signs of decline for the better part of the last two decades, the United States is still the hegemon and continues to be perceived as eagerly pursuing a strategy of containment targeting China. China, on the other hand, continues to believe its power is rising and that, as all great powers before, it needs space to expand. The containment-expansion riddle will not come easily to a final resolution. In a rare explicit comment, Xi Jinping declared in March 2023 that “Western countries led by the United States have implemented comprehensive containment, encirclement, and suppression against us, bringing unprecedented severe challenges to our country’s development.”6 Unless and until China has fulfilled its “dream” of becoming the new dominant power, it will always feel constricted. And so the encirclement-counter-encirclement ouroboros endures.

Caught in the Containment Loop

The deployment of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) starting at the end of 2013 did not magically dissolve the U.S. compression of China’s strategic space. This should not be entirely surprising. Since BRI is an “overt scheme to become a great power,”7 the spine of a future China- centric order,8 and an attempt to redefine the global system that has introduced its own language and spatial structures,9 the initiative will take more than just a decade to eventually achieve its desired outcome. Russia’s war in Ukraine has interrupted some of the initially envisaged corridors in Eurasia, but new connection points have been created, especially in the “three Souths” (South America, South Pacific, and sub-Saharan Africa).10 Ten years after the launch of BRI, the Chinese government continues to officially describe it as a successful endeavor that has “further opened up the main arteries of economic globalization” and whose expansive geographic delineations remain intact:

    The BRI has connected the vibrant East Asia economic circle at one end, the developed European economic circle at the other, and the countries in between with huge potential for economic development, and fostered closer economic cooperation with African and Latin American countries. It has formed a new global development dynamic in which the Eurasian continent is fully connected with the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans, and the land is integrated with the sea.11

Ten years on, Chinese political and strategic elites continue to construe the United States as principally motivated by a die-hard “Cold War mentality”12 and a desire to thwart China’s rise with every means at its disposal, including by stirring up the “China threat theory” in continually renewed forms.13 The United States’ most recent efforts to uphold a “free and open” Indo-Pacific and its doubling down on commitments to regional allies and partners have “only reinforced the conviction [among well-connected authors in the Chinese strategic community] that the Indo-Pacific strategy was focused on containing China.”14 The consolidation, encouraged by the U.S. government, of a “great triangle” among Japan, Australia, and India around China’s most important access routes to the open oceans continues to apply a “two-way compression” on China’s strategic space in the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean.15 The United States, which “cannot tolerate rivals,”16 is seen as “sparing no effort” in its attempts to contain China. This includes labeling China as the greatest challenge to the international order and using Taiwan, Xinjiang, and maritime issues to “interfere in China’s internal affairs,” as well as “forming cliques to contain and isolate China, and persisting in ‘choking’ and ‘derisking’ mainly the high-tech sector in order to suppress China’s industrial upgrading.”17 The United States is allegedly chipping away at China’s strategic space by developing global infrastructure programs that challenge BRI and by fomenting a “digital encirclement” of China that aims at subverting its domestic public opinion.18 Its efforts to “suppress and exclude” China are comprehensive and multilayered (encompassing economy and trade, finance, ideology, diplomacy, science and technology, and military affairs), and the pace of its strategic containment of China is accelerating.19 Notwithstanding the occasional creative semantic flourish, Chinese strategic elites in the post-pandemic era sound like a tiresome broken record on this issue.

The implicit linkage between China’s and Russia’s strategic spaces also endures, and the geostrategic importance of the Eurasian continent and its surrounding oceans, where great powers intersect, is still crucial.20 This contested space is coveted by countries eager to extend their “geopolitical tentacles,” such as the nations of Europe; “shift East,” such as India and Russia; or link both Eastern and Western Eurasia through military arrangements, such as the United States and Japan.21 After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, containment themes and squeezed strategic space imagery reappeared in Chinese commentary as a justification for Moscow’s aggression. Some Chinese strategic analysts viewed the war as the “inevitable” result of the “sharp deterioration” of Russia’s strategic environment due to the West’s infringement on its strategic space. According to this narrative, the conflict was forced on Moscow, which could not possibly stay “indifferent” to this situation.22 A Russia subdued by the West would leave China’s northern defense line wide open, posing a considerable threat from a geopolitical perspective. Doing everything possible to consolidate Russia’s position is therefore “very much in line with China’s strategic interests and crucial to the global struggle against hegemony.”23 In addition, the return of geopolitics to Europe has been accompanied by the foreseeable intensification of a Western narrative based on values and ideologies that oppose democracy to authoritarianism,24 thereby deepening the division of the world into value-based opposing camps. With China pushed into the same dishonorable corner as Russia, its preexisting perception of vilification at the hands of the Western powers has solidified. Regardless of what happens on the ground in Ukraine, Chinese analysts continue to believe that their country is and will likely remain the primary target of the U.S. containment strategy.25

Rising, Rising, Rising

Together with discussions of persistent containment schemes, political and strategic elites appear confident in the enduring trend of a narrowing power gap with the United States. Xi Jinping’s introduction of the idea that the world is undergoing “profound changes unseen in a century” at the ambassadorial work conference held in December 2017 reflects the leadership’s judgment of a forthcoming power shift. China is expected to replace the United States as the top world power, in part due to changes in comprehensive national power, globalization dynamics, and the impending fourth scientific and technological revolution. This judgment has not been subject to any significant revision since its pronouncement, even in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic or amid the pandemic’s lingering negative effects on the performance of the Chinese economy.26 Bidding farewell to Vladimir Putin on the Kremlin doorstep last year, Xi told his 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Russian counterpart: “Right now there are changes, the likes of which we haven’t seen for a hundred years, and we are the ones driving these changes together.”27 China’s tenacious confidence in a narrowing power gap rests on believing that its GDP will surpass the United States’, albeit at a slightly delayed date that some CICIR analysts now expect to be around 2030.28

More importantly, strategic elites continue to view U.S. power as embattled and being on a declining slope. China’s main rival is perceived as facing significant domestic and international challenges, such as social divisions, political polarization, deindustrialization, lack of firm Western alignment with its strategic interests, and recurrent discord with its partners and allies.29 Not only is the United States failing to consolidate a Western bloc within which it could maintain its authority, but the overall decline of its hegemonic power during the second decade of the 21st century has led to modifications in the world structure that, in turn, are accelerating the erosion of its global leadership. Unlike in the past, the transformation of the international system is now originating from developing countries, outside of the remit of the “Western civilization,” who are “breaking the Western powers’ monopoly” over the international order.30 While the power of the West continues to decline,31 the world is witnessing the formation of a growing “intermediate zone” where a wide variety of states with diverse political, social, and ideological systems congregate.32 For the foreseeable future, the trend is therefore not one in which the United States will be able to maintain or revive its global hegemony thanks to its alliance system, but one in which power is increasingly diffused and dispersed. Such an emerging strategic environment will affect the way great-power competition is played in the long term and offer China more strategic space, especially as this “middle zone” becomes “less tolerant of hegemonic power politics.”33

Whether they observe the changes in the international configuration of power brought about by the incremental decline of American hegemony, the acceleration of Western economic decoupling and multiplication of trade and tech sanctions against China, or the need to loosen the concentration of U.S. containment in the Asia-Pacific region,34 Chinese strategic thinkers reach the same conclusion as before: China needs to operate a counter-containment strategy, which requires the expansion of its strategic space.35 Such an expansion is not limited to physical geographies encompassing whole continents or even the entire developing world,36 but also includes the economic and ideological realms in which China must exert its own influence.37

China inaugurated its diplomatic transformation in 2013, notes Yan Xuetong, when the leadership decided to abandon the priority formerly given to eliciting an international peaceful environment conducive to China’s economic development in favor of “shaping an international environment conducive to the realization of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” Strategic rather than merely economic interests have since then guided China’s external behavior—a transformation justified by China’s growing comprehensive national power. Yan cautions, however, that overestimating China’s power and setting overly ambitious goals could lead to “strategic overdraft,” a fate shared by many aspiring or actual great powers in the past.38 Examining the impact of the most recent geopolitical changes on China’s national security strategy, Wang Guifang, a researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences Institute of War Studies, also warns that since such ambitions and “goals exist only in the imagination, they can be infinite.” One may well dream of “setting a throne on the moon to enjoy the lovely view,” but ultimately resources are limited, and this is an unwavering fact.39 Renmin University professor Shi Yinhong echoes his colleagues’ warnings about possible strategic overextension and advocates both prioritizing countries within BRI that will bring actual strategic, diplomatic, and economic benefits to China and prioritizing investment in handling the Taiwan issue and relations with the United States rather than in BRI. In the long run, he adds, China should rebalance its geostrategy and look “not only westward, but also eastward and northward” in the direction of Western Europe, North America, and Japan in order to maintain its access to advanced technology and markets.40

A New Map?

Expressed concerns about potential overextension, especially at a time of increased domestic economic constraints, leave open the prospect of a possible reconfiguration of China’s mental map. This could take the form of a geographic downsizing, either by reverting to the inner concentric circle and focusing efforts and resources on the “minor” rather than the “greater periphery” of China’s strategic space or by concentrating on a limited number of “fulcrum” countries that have the greatest strategic value for China, regardless of their geographic proximity, as suggested by 36 37 38 39 40 Shi Yinhong.41 Xi Jinping alluded to the imperative to be more selective and deliberate about the deployment of BRI during an August 2018 symposium. He instructed various domestic stakeholders participating in the implementation of the initiative that broad, freestyle brushstrokes, which were preferred in the initial phase of its deployment, should now be abandoned in favor of fine-brush meticulously traced art. Public reports about Xi’s speech did not state, however, whether his artistic metaphor referred to prioritizing specific regions, countries, or projects, or instead to refining BRI’s methods and standards.42

A reconfiguration could also take the form of a change in conceptual, rather than purely spatial or geographic, perimeters. As noted in the previous chapters, initial domestic discussions about a significantly expanded strategic space coincided with a period during which elites were increasingly confident in China’s growing material power. During that phase, the discourse was noticeably dominated by strategists from security and military power centers who promoted the transformation of China into a sea power and the development of a blue water navy to protect its increasingly global interests as well as access to global chokepoints, markets, and resources. Their vision was deeply influenced by classical geopolitical theories and was mostly rendered in geographic projections. Inhibited from advocating actual physical conquest, they resorted to identifying “new frontiers” in spaces that remained unclaimed and free of human presence, where China could still hope to expand. It is possible that this hard-power phase has now begun to transition into, or is being supplemented by, a new phase of execution focused on ideological expansion. The commitment to a quasi-global mental map would remain, but instead of China prioritizing the material power of its external footprint, which is costly in terms of both monetary investments and increased international resistance, the main conduit for overseas influence would now be ideational and civilizational.

This focus on ideological expansion could be the new “intangible” dimension of China’s strategic space to which earlier strategic writings referred with no further explanation. After all, the Chinese Communist Party’s survival has been its core concern since its foundation, and fears of “foreign hostile forces” relentlessly plotting “color revolutions” and campaigns to coerce the regime to “peacefully evolve” into a democracy are entrenched in the leadership’s mindset. The ideological realm is perhaps the dimension in which using the term “vital space” is most appropriate because it touches on the party’s deepest existential fears. Having started from a primarily defensive position in this domain, China may be in the process of transitioning into a new phase during which it seeks not only to secure but also to expand its strategic space in the ideological sphere.43 The leadership’s 2013 elevation of “discourse power” (huayuquan) to the level of a national strategy, along with its desire to build an outward directed “discourse system,” illustrates its ambition to shape the international rules and make other international actors endorse its ideology and vision for global governance as legitimate.44 That same year, the concept of a “community of shared future for humankind” (renlei mingyun gongtongti, formerly translated as “community of common destiny”) also emerged. The concept has since become the rallying cry of China’s global diplomacy. Beneath its banal name lies the Chinese Communist Party’s rejection of “so-called universal values” that vow to protect the individual’s fundamental rights against the excessive power of the state.45

Today, it is the term “civilization,” adopted most recently by the official CCP diplospeak, that catalyzes China’s struggle for greater ideological space. This presents a higher-order variant of previous efforts and epitomizes Beijing’s rejection of the ideological hegemony of the West and its aspiration to represent a valid, nondemocratic alternative, possibly with broad appeal. In the words of Xi, China’s pathway would “break the myth that modernization equals Westernization” and incarnate a “different vision for modernization.”46 It is not entirely clear whether the “civilization” framing will stop at supporting the narrative that all political systems and ideologies, including authoritarian ones, are equally legitimate, or whether it will be used as a way to eventually assert the superiority of China’s governance model, and even its applicability to other nations. More certain, however, is the fact that the CCP leadership will never abandon its quest to increase its own power in all dimensions. In this context, the three global initiatives Xi announced between September 2021 and March 2023, with development, security, and civilization as their main banners, can be understood as the official articulation of an ambitious three-pronged strategy for expanding China’s strategic space globally. It has now become imperative to unpack the various facets—including the darkest ones—of the PRC’s civilizational discourse, which under Xi has become an increasingly prominent feature of both domestic narratives and external messaging, and to understand the deep implications for the future world order.

Nadège Rolland is Distinguished Fellow for China Studies at the National Bureau of Asian Research. Her NBR publications include China’s Eurasian Century? Political and Strategic Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative (2017), “China’s Vision for a New World Order” (2020), and “A New Great Game? Situating Africa in China’s Strategic Thinking” (2021).

Download the report PDF.

Read the chapters online:

Introduction: Mapping China’s Strategic Space

Chapter 1: Strategic Space

Chapter 2: The Return of Geopolitics

Chapter 3: “Positioning” China: Power and Identity

Chapter 4: The Logic and Grammar of Expansion

Chapter 5: Conclusion: A New Map?

IMAGE CREDITS

Banner illustration by Nate Christenson ©The National Bureau of Asian Research.

ENDNOTES

  1. “‘Zhongguo de shijie zhixu xiangxiang yu quanqiu zhanlüe guihua’ yantao hui” [Seminar on “China’s Imagined World Order and Global Strategic Planning”], Wenhua zongheng, February 21, 2013, http://www.21bcr.com/zhongguodeshijiezhixuxiangxiangyuquanqiuzhanlueguihuayantaohui.
  2. Chen Jimin, “Meiguo jueqi de jingyan yu qishi” [Experience and Lessons from the Rise of the United States], China Investment 17 (2018).
  3. Daguo xingshuai yu guojia anquan [National Security and the Rise and Fall of Great Powers], CICIR, April 15, 2021. A summary of the book and its introduction translated by Dylan Levi King are available from the Center for Strategic Translation, https://www.strategictranslation.org/ articles/general-laws-of-the-rise-of-great-powers. For additional comparative historical examples, see Woodruff D. Smith, “The Political Culture of Imperialism in the German Kaiserreich,” National Bureau of Asian Research, Mapping China’s Strategic Space, August 23, 2023, https://www. nbr.org/publication/the-political-culture-of-imperialism-in-the-german-kaiserreich; Alexis Dudden, “Mental Maps, Territorial Imaging, and Strategy: Thinking about the Japanese Empire,” NBR, Mapping China’s Strategic Space, August 23, 2023, https://strategicspace.nbr.org/mental- maps-territorial-imaging-and-strategy-thinking-about-the-japanese-empire; Jeffrey Mankoff, “Constructing Russia’s Strategic Space: Empire, Identity, and Geopolitics,” NBR, Mapping China’s Strategic Space, August 23, 2023, https://strategicspace.nbr.org/constructing-russias-strategic- space-empire-identity-and-geopolitics; and Stephen Wertheim, “To the Grand Area and Beyond: The Sudden Transformation of the United States’ Strategic Space,” NBR, Mapping China’s Strategic Space, August 23, 2023, https://strategicspace.nbr.org/to-the-grand-area-and-beyond- the-sudden-transformation-of-the-united-states-strategic-space.
  4. Jiang Shigong, “Meiyou diguo de diguo shi (‘Tiemu’er zhihou: 1405 nian yilai de quanqiu diguo shi’ tuijianxu)” [A History of Empire without Empire (Preface to “After Tamerlane: A History of Global Empires since 1405”)], Aisixiang, March 26, 2021, https://www.aisixiang. com/data/125734.html; and Jiang Shigong, “The Internal Logic of Super-Sized Political Entities: ‘Empire’ and World Order,” April 2019, trans. David Ownby, Reading the China Dream, https://www.readingthechinadream.com/jiang-shigong-empire-and-world-order.html.
  5. Zhang Hongming, “Da bianju beijingxia Zhongguo dui Feizhou de zhanlüe xuqiu” [China’s Strategic Requirements for Africa in the Context of the Great Changes], Western Asia and Africa 4 (2021).
  6. John Ruwitch, “China Accuses U.S. of Containment and Warns of Potential Conflict,” NPR, March 7, 2023, https://www.npr. org/2023/03/07/1161570798/china-accuses-u-s-of-containment-warns-of-potential-conflict.
  7. Xue Li, “Yidai yilu zhanlüe shi daguo yangmou” [The Belt and Road Strategy Is an Overt Scheme to Become a Great Power], Financial Times (Chinese edition), December 13, 2015, http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001065182?full=y.
  8. Nadège Rolland, China’s Eurasian Century? Political and Strategic Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative (Seattle: NBR, 2017); and Nadège Rolland, “China’s Vision for a New World Order,” NBR, NBR Special Report, no. 83, January 2020.
  9. Nadine Godehardt, “China’s Geopolitical Code: Shaping the Next World Order,” NBR, Mapping China’s Strategic Space, January 24, 2024, https://strategicspace.nbr.org/chinas-geopolitical-code-shaping-the-next-world-order.
  10. Huang Renwei, “Wukelan weiji dui ‘yidai yilu’ de diyuanzhengzhi jingji yingxiang” [Geopolitical and Economic Impact of the Ukraine Crisis on BRI], Contemporary International Relations 1 (2023).
  11. State Council Information Office (PRC), The Belt and Road Initiative: A Key Pillar of the Global Community of Shared Future (Beijing, October 2023), https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/whitepaper/202310/10/content_WS6524b55fc6d0868f4e8e014c.html.
  12. “Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning’s Regular Press Conference on April 12, 2024,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs (PRC), April 12, 2024, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/xw/fyrbt/lxjzh/202405/t20240530_11347735.html.
  13. For example, Jiang Feng, the party secretary of the Shanghai International Studies University, talks about NATO’s “strategic demonization of China.” See Tuvia Gering, “Crossing the Great Divide, Injecting New Blood, Strategic Demonization, and the Changing Balance of Power,” Discourse Power, August 23, 2023, https://discoursepower.substack.com/p/discourse-power-august-23-2022. For other examples, see “‘Sharp Power’ a New Version of ‘China Threat’ Rhetoric: Spokesperson,” Xinhua, March 2, 2018, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018- 03/02/c_137011743.htm; and Zhao Long, “Meiguo zhengzai mouhua xin ‘bianyuan didai’ zhanlüe” [The United States is Planning a New “Rimland” Strategy], Huanqiu, August 26, 2022.
  14. Elliot S. Ji, “Chinese Perspectives on the ‘Indo-Pacific’ as a Geostrategic Construct,” NBR, Mapping China’s Strategic Space, May 14, 2024, https://strategicspace.nbr.org/chinese-perspectives-on-the-indo-pacific-as-a-geostrategic-construct.
  15. Toshi Yoshihara and Jack Bianchi, “Seizing on Weakness: Allied Strategy for Competing with China’s Globalizing Military,” Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2021, https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/CSBA8239_(Seizing_on_Weakness_Report)_Web.pdf.
  16. Wang Guifang, “Qianxi diyuanzhengzhi bianhua dui guojia anquan zhanlüe de yingxiang” [Brief Analysis of the Impact of Geopolitical Changes on National Security Strategy], National Security Forum 6 (2023).
  17. Chen Xiangyang, “Xinshidai guojia anquan zhidu yu zhanlüe chuangxin huhang minzu fuxing” [In the New Era, National Security System and Strategic Innovation Escort National Rejuvenation], National Security Studies 5 (2023).
  18. Huang, “Wukelan weiji dui ‘yidai yilu’ de diyuanzhengzhi jingji yingxiang.”
  19. “Meiguo dui Hua kaiqi ‘daweijiao’: Zhongguo ruhe fangfan?” [The United States Has Launched a “Great Encirclement and Annihilation” Campaign: How Can China Guard Against It?], Guancha, June 1, 2022, available at https://military.china.com/news/13004177/20220601/42442377. html; and Da Wei, “Zai dabianju zhong jianchi heping fazhan daolu” [Adhere to the Path of Peaceful Development in the Context of Great Changes], Center for International Security and Strategy, Tsinghua University, July 13, 2022, http://ciss.tsinghua.edu.cn/info/zlyaq/5073.
  20. Hu Zhiding and Wang Xuewen, “Daguo diyuanzhanlüe jiaohuiqu de shikong yanbian: Tezheng, guili yu qi yuanyin” [Spatio-Temporal.
  21. Wang, “Qianxi diyuanzhengzhi bianhua dui guojia anquan zhanlüe de yingxiang.”
  22. Zhang Zhikun, “Lizu yuandong, Zhong E liangguo ying lianshou kaituo xin de zhanlüe kongjian” [With a Foothold in the Far East, China and Russia Should Join Hands to Open Up a New Strategic Space], Kunlunce, July 1, 2023, https://www.kunlunce.net/e/wap/show2022.php? bclassid=&classid=161&id=170166.
  23. Zhang, “Lizu yuandong, Zhong E liangguo ying lianshou kaituo xin de zhanlüe kongjian.” See also Frank Jüris, “How Chinese Strategists View, Understand, and Contend with Russia’s Strategic Space,” NBR, Mapping China’s Strategic Space, September 2024.
  24. Fu Yu, “Quanqiu anquan geju yu Zhongguo guoji zhanlüe xuanze” [Global Security Structure and China’s International Strategic Choices], Academic Frontiers, February 2023.
  25. Ibid.
  26. “Zhuanjia zonglun ‘yiqing hou shidai’ de Zhongguo yu shijie” [Experts Discuss China and the World in the “Post-Pandemic Era”], China Daily, April 20, 2020, https://cn.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202004/20/WS5e9d45a9a310c00b73c784b6.html; and “Zai dabianju zhong mou xinju de kexue zhinan” [A Scientific Guide to Creating a New Pattern Amidst the Great Changes], Study Times, November 11, 2020, available at https://www.chinanews.com.cn/ll/2020/11-11/9335830.shtml.
  27. “Xi Tells Putin They Are Making Historic Changes after Kremlin Meeting,” NBC News, March 23, 2023, available at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=aebFssopWVg.
  28. This is according to a report published by CICIR’s Macroeconomics Research Group in February 2022, cited in Fu, “Quanqiu anquan geju yu Zhongguo guoji zhanlüe xuanze.”
  29. Wang Wen, “Lun xinshidai de zhanlüe jiyuqi: Yuanqi, xianzhuang yu weilai” [On the Strategic Opportunity Period in the New Era: Origin, Status Quo, and Future], Journal of the Central Institute of Socialism, August 15, 2022, translation available from CSIS, Interpret: China, https://interpret.csis.org/translations/on-the-strategic-opportunity-period-in-the-new-era-origin-status-quo-and-future. On the theme of the misalignment of strategic priorities and interests between the United States and its key partners, see Ji, “Chinese Perspectives on the ‘Indo-Pacific’ as a Geostrategic Construct.”
  30. Zhang, “Da bianju beijingxia Zhongguo dui Feizhou de zhanlüe xuqiu.”
  31. Zhang Yunling, “Chongjian zhixu ying jiji tuidong shijie geju de jianbian” [Rebuilding the Order Requires Actively Pushing for Gradual Changes in the Global Structure], Social Science Journal, January 7, 2021; and Chen Xiangyang, “Xinxing guanzhuang feiyan yiqing jiang ling shijie duoji geju tiqian daolai” [The Novel Coronavirus Epidemic Will Bring About a Multipolar World Structure Ahead of Schedule], Sohu, June 21, 2020, https://www.sohu.com/a/403227941_116897.
  32. Shi Yinhong, “Meiguo ji qita zhuyao guojia dui Hua zhengce yu weilai shijie geju” [The China Policy of the United States and Other Important Countries, and the Future World Structure], International Security Studies 6 (2020).
  33. Ibid.
  34. Hu and Wang, “Daguo diyuanzhanlüe jiaohuiqu de shikong yanbian”; and “Miandui Ouya bianju, zhoubian waijiao geng zhongyao” [In the Face of Changes in Eurasia, Periphery Diplomacy Becomes More Important], Center for International Security and Strategy, Tsinghua University, April 20, 2022, https://ciss.tsinghua.edu.cn/info/zlyaq/4787.
  35. Zhou Jianming, “Ezhi yu fan ezhi: Zhong Mei zhijian yi chang wufa bimian de zhanlüe jiaoliang” [Containment and Counter- Containment: An Inevitable Strategic Contest between China and the United States], Guancha, April 10, 2023, https://www.guancha.cn/ zhoujianming/2023_04_10_687692.shtml.
  36. See, as examples of enduring extreme mental maps, Wen Tiejun “Luquan zhanlüe ‘xichu’ dui Zhongguo quyu fazhan de yingxiang” [The Influence of the “Marching Westwards” Land Power Strategy on China’s Regional Development], 163.com, September 11, 2022, https:// www.163.com/dy/article/HGUU5E9E0553AM5X.html; Zhang, “Da bianju beijingxia Zhongguo dui Feizhou de zhanlüe xuqiu”; Li Zhenfu, “Shijie jingji fazhan zhongxin zhuanyi yu ‘Beibingyang-Taipingyang shidai’ daolai: Jianyu ‘Taipingyang shidai’ shuo shangting” [Shift of the World Economic Center of Gravity and the Arrival of the “Arctic-Pacific” Age: A Discussion of the “Pacific Era”], People’s Forum, September 2022; Thomas des Garets Geddes, “Facing the Global South: Building a New International System by Yang Ping,” Sinification, February 18, 2023, https://www.sinification.com/p/facing-the-global-south-building; Thomas des Garets Geddes and Daniel Crain, “Three Rings: Building a New International System in the Face of Western Decoupling by Cheng Yawen,” Sinification, April 13, 2023, https://www. sinification.com/p/three-rings-building-a-new-international; and Thomas des Garets Geddes, “China’s Grand Strategy in Asia and Beyond According to Shi Yuanhua,” Sinification, December 3, 2023, https://www.sinification.com/p/chinas-grand-strategy-in-asia-and.
  37. Zhang, “Da bianju beijingxia Zhongguo dui Feizhou de zhanlüe xuqiu”; and Hu and Wang, “Daguo diyuanzhanlüe jiaohuiqu de shikong yanbian.” For an examination of efforts to define China’s new economic strategic space, see Karen M. Sutter, “China’s View of Its Economic Sphere of Influence, Economic Security, and Trading Networks,” NBR, Mapping China’s Strategic Space, September 2024.
  38. Yan Xuetong, “Waijiao zhuanxing, liyi paixu yu daguo jueqi” [Diplomatic Transformation, Interest Prioritization, and the Rise of Great Powers], Sohu, June 14, 2017, https://www.sohu.com/a/148761898_99912126.
  39. Wang, “Qianxi diyuanzhengzhi bianhua dui guojia anquan zhanlüe de yingxiang.”
  40. Shi Yinhong, “Lun yidai yilu yu Zhongguo zhanlüe” [The Belt and Road Initiative and China’s Strategy], China Review, November 30, 2023, translation available from CSIS, Interpret: China, https://interpret.csis.org/translations/the-belt-and-road-initiative-and-chinas-strategy.
  41. Shi, “Lun yidai yilu yu Zhongguo zhanlüe.” See also Xu Jin et al., “Dazao Zhongguo zhoubian anquan de ‘zhanlüe zhidian’ guojia” [Building “Strategic Fulcrum” Countries for China’s Periphery Security], World Knowledge 15 (2014).
  42. Fan Hengshan, “Tuidong gongjian yidai yilu xiang gao zhiliang fazhan zhuanbian” [Promoting the Transformation of BRI to High-Quality Development], People’s Daily, October 29, 2018, http://theory.people.com.cn/n1/2018/1029/c409499-30367473.html.
  43. Nadège Rolland, “China’s Counteroffensive in the War of Ideas,” Lowy Institute, Interpreter, February 24, 2020.
  44. Rolland, “China’s Vision for a New World Order.”
  45. Nadège Rolland, “Examining China’s ‘Community of Common Destiny,’” Power 3.0, January 23, 2018.
  46. He Zhongguo, “Wei shenme shuo Zhongguo shi xiandaihua dapole ‘xiandaihua=xifanghua’ de misi” [Why Is It Said That Chinese-Style Modernization Breaks the Myth of “Modernization=Westernization?”], Study Times, February 10, 2023, http://theory.people.com.cn/ n1/2023/0210/c40531-32621164.html.

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