General view of Brazil's President Michel Temer, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, South Africa's President Jacob Zuma and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi seat during the BRICS Business Forum at the BRICS Summit in Xiamen, Fujian province on September 4, 2017. REUTERS/Fred Dufour/Pool - RC1EB86E2590

China now touches virtually every region in the world — how is China’s increasing involvement impacting South Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and elsewhere?

Global China: Regional influence and strategy

Authors: Tarun Chhabra, Rush Doshi, Ryan Hass, Emilie Kimball

The papers in this installment of the “Global China: Assessing China’s Growing Role in the World” project explore China’s efforts to expand its influence across different geographic regions, as well as implications of those efforts for the United States and for international order.

China and Latin America: A pragmatic embrace

Authors: Ted Piccone

China’s maturing relationship with the diverse nations of Latin America and the Caribbean, driven primarily by economic security interests, is facing new challenges as the struggling region copes with an intensifying wave of economic, public security, and public health crises.

Testing the limits of China and Brazil’s partnership

Authors: Harold Trinkunas

When it comes to global aspirations, China and Brazil have historically been in sync on their critiques of the liberal international order, if not on their preferred remedies. Since President Jair Bolsonaro assumed office in January 2019, this historical pattern has been upended.

A BRI(dge) too far: The unfulfilled promise and limitations of China’s involvement in Afghanistan

Authors: Vanda Felbab-Brown

China’s focus on and presence in Afghanistan has grown significantly over the past decade. However, the original emphasis on economic relations has been eclipsed by China’s security agenda in the country.

China in Central Asia: Is China winning the "new great game"?

Authors: Susan A. Thornton

Washington’s narrative that Chinese activities in Central Asia are, on balance, damaging to the interests of those countries misses important points about leverage, development, and U.S. interests in the region.

The limits of authoritarian compatibility: Xi’s China and Putin’s Russia

Authors: Pavel K. Baev

China and Russia are two key revisionist challengers for U.S. positions in the world, but maturing authoritarian tendencies in their regimes do not make them natural allies.

“At all costs”: How Pakistan and China control the narrative on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

Authors: Madiha Afzal

The tight control of the narrative on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) by both China and Pakistan and a lack of transparency on its terms prevents proper accountability of the venture.

China's Indian Ocean ambitions

Authors: Joshua T. White

China has significantly expanded its engagements in the Indian Ocean region over the past three decades, raising fears among American and Indian strategists that its growing naval presence might provide it with meaningful military advantages far from its shores.

Great power rivalry in the Red Sea

Authors: Zach Vertin

China’s growing presence in Djibouti has thrust unprecedented attention upon the little-known African port nation and made it a touchstone in the debate over Beijing’s expanding global aims.

China in the Mediterranean: Implications of expanding Sino-North Africa relations

Authors: Adel Abdel Ghafar, Anna L. Jacobs

A power vacuum left by a disengaged United States and a weakened Europe has created an opening for powers like China and Russia to expand their influence across North Africa.

Israel and the Middle East amid U.S.-China competition

Authors: Natan Sachs, Kevin Huggard

Great power competition between the United States and China, should it arise in full force, would change the face of Middle Eastern affairs.

Saudi Arabia’s relations with China: Functional, but not strategic

Authors: Bruce Riedel

Saudi Arabia values its relations with China, but it is well aware of their limits. Beijing will not replace Washington in Riyadh’s worldview, even if U.S.-Saudi relations falter in the next administration.

Great expectations: The unraveling of the Australia-China relationship

Authors: Natasha Kassam

Why have political and trade tensions between Australia and China escalated so quickly? How is Australia responding? And why should the rest of the world care about the state of play between Australia and China?

The risks of China’s ambitions in the South Pacific

Authors: Jonathan Pryke

Over the last two decades China has been steadily building its influence in the South Pacific. This has left many analysts in the West to ask, what is China’s ambition in the South Pacific, and what risks does this create?