Continuity and Change of China’s Foreign Policy under Xi Jinping

Abstract

With China’s economic power on the rise, “China and the world order” has become a key topic of discussion for academics and policymakers. To analyze China’s evolving grand strategy, this paper addresses such questions as: What are China’s strategic intensions? And how has the Xi Jinping administration employed diplomacy in the pursuit of these objectives from 2013? This paper contends that Western international relations theories have had a significant impact on the development of China’s foreign policy in the post-Cold War era, and there are four major factors that shape China’s calculative rising strategy under the umbrella of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): Seeking structural power, economic statecraft, ideological hegemony and military buildup. Nowadays, BRI is largely driven by state capitalism as a consequence of government reorganization and the remodeling of Chinese policy-making.