China's Strategic Opportunity

Book excerpt: This book offers a systematic study of China's great-power diplomacy under President Xi Jinping. It critically applies the Chinese concept of 'strategic opportunity', which is defined by the national ambitions as set by the ruling communist party leadership, the opportunities and risks presented in the international environment, and the policy instruments at the nation's disposal. Applying the dynamic concept, the book identifies key Chinese beliefs that seek to best match its resources with its policy ends and investigates policy patterns in China's management of competition with the United States, the Belt and Road Initiative, economic statecraft, regional and global institutional orders, and its multipolar diplomacy. Taking seriously China's choice, Yong Deng challenges the mainstream structural analysis in International Relations that focuses merely on rising powers' insecurity and discontent in the international system. His study shows how the world's leading contender to, and major stakeholder in, the world order actually evaluates, and actively seeks to control, its international environment.