China's Global Strategy under Xi Jinping

A powerful analysis of China's bid for global pre-eminence and what it means for the future of international politics. Xi Jinping's pledge to achieve "the China Dream of national rejuvenation" by 2050 captures the ambition driving China's current global strategy. While the phrase may be characteristically vague, its implications are far-reaching--shaping how Chinese leaders engage with the world and envision China's place within it. In China's Global Strategy under Xi Jinping, Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung offer a clear and compelling account of how China is seeking to reshape the international order on its own terms. Drawing on decades of political evolution, they introduce a powerful new framework--Sino-centric party-state realism--to explain the ideological, political, and strategic logic behind China's foreign policy under Xi. The authors apply this framework across three key domains: global diplomacy, technology and the economy, and geopolitics. At the heart of Xi's vision is a revival of the ancient tianxia model of global leadership, in which China becomes the world's pre-eminent power--not by replacing the United States as global hegemon, but by being widely embraced as a force for good. This model suggests a relatively passive form of leadership, yet one that still aims to fundamentally reshape global norms and institutions. Tsang and Cheung also examine the internal drivers of this strategy, showing how domestic political imperatives and party ideology shape China's external behavior. The result is a nuanced and timely analysis of a rising power with global ambitions--and the potential for great power conflict. Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand China's evolving role in world affairs, this book offers a vital lens on one of the most consequential geopolitical shifts of our time.

Table of Contents:
Dedication Illustrations Preface Abbreviations Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: China's Global Strategy under Xi Chapter 3: Analytical Framework: Sino-centric Party-state Realism Chapter 4: Making China's Foreign Policy Chapter 5: Tianxia: An Alternative International Order Chapter 6: Instrumentalist Approach to Reshaping the International System Chapter 7: Instrumentalist Approach to Global Economic Engagement Chapter 8: Sino-centric Party-state Realism at work: Taiwan and the Ukraine War Chapter 9: Strength and Weaknesses of China's Global Strategy Postscript (by Steve Tsang) Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Steve Tsang is Director of the China Institute at SOAS University of London. He is also an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony's College at Oxford, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He previously served as the Head of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies and as Director of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham. Before that he spent twenty-nine years at Oxford University, where he earned his D.Phil. and worked as a Professorial Fellow, Dean, and Director of the Asian Studies Centre at St Antony's College. He has broad areas of research interest and has published extensively, including five single authored and fourteen collaborative books. Olivia Cheung is Lecturer in Politics at the Department of European and International Studies and Affiliate of the Lau China Institute at King's College London. She is also China Fellow at the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Previously, she was Research Fellow at the China Institute at SOAS University of London. She obtained her D.Phil. from the University of Oxford.

Review :
In this masterful treatment the authors present a convincing portrait of Xi Jinping as a transformational leader who has replaced Deng Xiaoping's cautious approach to international relations with a Sino-centric party-state paradigm that will transform the liberal world order in China's image. Limiting the effectiveness of Xi's strategy, they argue, is the reality that, although many states are not troubled by China's vision of multi-polarity as a path to its global pre-eminence, they are concerned that they may become collateral damage in Xi's ratcheting up of military intimidation. Constructing a powerful analytical framework of 'Sino-centric Party-state Realism,' Tsang and Cheung have performed in this book an outstanding scholarship to bridge China studies and theories of international relations, and to enrich both fields with in-depth and nuanced understanding of the making of Chinese foreign policy particularly China's global strategy. A thought-provoking deep dive into Xi Jinping's worldview and China's elaborate efforts to reshape global norms, institutions, and procedures. Tsang and Cheung decode opaque Chinese narratives and describe Beijing's various international initiatives-which expose the new Sinocentric world order that Xi and the Chinese Communist regime are meticulously building. A sobering study to be carefully read by all who want to understand what the future may hold for the world. Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung have impressively captured the complexity of Xi Jinping's global strategy and, in doing so, have created a volume that is essential reading for scholars and policymakers. This is the most detailed and persuasive account of how Xi Jinping is working to transform the world order, why he believes that establishing Chinese preeminence requires humbling the United States over Taiwan, and why he intends to do so through a crisis rather than a war. To deter Xi, we must understand how he actually thinks, not how structural theory suggests he ought to think. Drawing on a huge range of primary sources, Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung have given us the indispensable guide to Xi's worldview.