How a Rising China Has Remade Global Politics

The Editors

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang presents the government’s “work report” during the second session of the 13th National People’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, March 5, 2019 (Imaginechina photo via AP Images).

As much as any other single development, China’s rise over the past two decades has remade the landscape of global politics. Beginning with its entry into the World Trade Organization in December 2001, China rapidly transformed its economy from a low-cost “factory to the world” to a global leader in advanced technologies. Along the way, it has transformed global supply chains, but also international diplomacy, leveraging its success to become the primary trading and development partner for emerging economies across Asia, Africa and Latin America.

But Beijing’s emergence as a global power has also created tensions. Early expectations that China’s integration into the global economy would lead to liberalization at home and moderation abroad have proven overly optimistic, especially since President Xi Jinping rose to power in 2012. Instead, Xi has overseen a domestic crackdown on dissent, in order to shore up and expand the Chinese Communist Party’s control over every aspect of Chinese society. Needed economic reforms have been put on the backburner, while unfair trade practices, such as forced technology transfers and other restrictions for foreign corporations operating in China, have resulted in a trade war with the U.S. and increasing criticism from Europe.

Meanwhile, China’s “quiet rise” has given way to more vocal expressions of great power aspirations and a more assertive international posture, particularly with regard to China’s territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Combined with Beijing’s military modernization program, that has put Asia, as well as the United States, on notice that China’s economic power will have geopolitical implications. The COVID-19 pandemic initially opened up opportunities for Beijing to expand its influence, but has since called into question both China’s credibility as a responsible stakeholder and the future of the supply chains that have fueled its economic success story.

All of these trends are now likely to gather momentum, as Xi is poised to be reappointed to a third term as Communist Party chairman, breaking the two-term precedent set during China’s reform and opening period. But as he concentrates power into his own hands, Xi also assumes greater responsibility for China’s successes—and its failures. With challenges piling up, there is no guarantee that China’s rise won’t lose steam, due to outside pressure from Beijing’s competition with Washington or mistakes and unforced errors of its own.

WPR has covered China’s rise in detail, and continues to examine key questions about what will happen next. Can China sustain its economic miracle in the face of demographic and environmental challenges—and its own “zero COVID” policy? Will China’s military modernization program change the balance of power in Asia and beyond? Is China seeking to reshape the rules-based international system to better reflect its interests, or is Beijing’s goal to undermine and replace it? Below are some of the highlights of WPR’s coverage.

Our Most Recent Coverage:

Xi’s Third-Term Agenda Is Heavy on Security

At the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a speech outlining his priorities heading into his almost certain third term, including his own concept of “national rejuvenation,” which goes hand in hand with a fight against internal and external enemies, both real and conceptual.

China Under Xi Jinping

Many observers in the West assumed that integrating China into the global economy would lead to domestic liberalization and international moderation. Instead, under Xi, China has pocketed the gains of its economic rise, while cracking down on what little domestic dissent had emerged under previous leaders. He’s now poised for a third term as party chairman, breaking the two-term precedent set since China’s reform and opening period.

• Why the future of China’s rise is increasingly determined by one man, in In China, the Only Real Question Now Is, ‘What Will Xi Do?’
• Why Xi can’t reverse course on China’s “zero COVID” policy, in Despite the Costs, Xi Has Hitched His Political Fortunes to ‘Zero COVID’
• What the shrinking of abortion rights in the U.S. has in common with China’s family planning policies—past and present, in The End of Roe v. Wade Has Parallels to China’s One Child Policy
• How China’s delivery drivers are bearing the brunt of Beijing’s “zero Covid” policy, in China’s ‘Zero COVID’ Measures Are Taking a Toll on Gig Workers

U.S.-China Relations

As optimism about China’s rise began to fade at the end of the Obama administration, the U.S. foreign policy community quickly embraced a bipartisan consensus on the need to get tough on Beijing. But former President Donald Trump’s trade war, amid calls for a broader “decoupling” of the two countries’ economies, did not deliver decisive results. Since taking office, the Biden administration has tried to maintain pressure on Beijing while opening channels of engagement, but those efforts have failed to meaningfully improve relations. More recently, the Biden team has increased the pressure on Beijing, particularly when it comes to competition over the technologies that will determine global power dynamics in the 21st century.

• What the latest round of U.S. restrictions on trade in semiconductors means for China’s high-tech sector, in The U.S. Takes Aim at China’s Semiconductor Ambitions
• Why the U.S. shouldn’t try to emulate China’s approach to boosting tech innovation, in The CHIPS Act Alone Won’t Win the U.S.-China Tech War
• Why framing China as “the next big threat” in the Middle East is a mistake, in The U.S. Should Avoid the ‘China Trap’ in the Middle East
• Why universities and academic researchers are increasingly feeling the effect of the U.S.-China strategic competition, in The U.S.-China Decoupling Is Coming for Academia

Foreign Policy & the Belt and Road Initiative

China has a long history of aid and investment in the developing world. Now its Belt and Road Initiative of global infrastructure investment is making inroads not only in Asia and Africa, but also Europe. But Beijing is increasingly using the leverage its economic partnerships generate to advance its political interests, at times by using boycotts and other coercive tactics to bully governments that cross it.

• How China is outpacing Russia in Central Asia, in China Is Taking Advantage of Russia’s Weakness in Central Asia
• What’s driving New Zealand’s recent about-faces on relations with China, in Ardern’s Hot-and-Cold Approach to China Is Getting Harder to Follow
• How China is taking advantage of Myanmar’s diplomatic isolation to deepen its influence there, in China’s Support Is Emboldening Myanmar’s Military
• How China is benefiting from New Delhi’s strategic incoherence when it comes to bilateral relations, in Two Years After Border Clashes, India Still Lacks a Coherent China Policy

China’s Military Modernization—and Taiwan

Once primarily a personnel-heavy and ill-equipped land army, the Chinese military has overhauled itself into a force capable of fighting on land and sea, in the air and space, as well as in the cyber domain. And its cutting-edge equipment is increasingly supplied by a Chinese defense industry that has itself become a global player. That has raised concerns among neighbors and rivals, particularly when it comes to the prospect of an invasion of Taiwan to unify the island with the mainland by force.

• Why fears of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan are overblown, in China Has Nothing to Gain From Invading Taiwan
• Why China’s attempts to intimidate Taiwan are backfiring, in China’s Saber-Rattling Won’t Make Taiwan Shift Course
• How China’s military show of force after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit to Taiwan upped the ante with Taipei—and Washington, in China’s Response to Pelosi’s Taiwan Visit Is Rewriting the Playbook
• How China’s rapid advances in military capabilities are making its neighbors wary, in China’s Military Advances Have Come With Some Political Downsides