Global China

About

From a potential “responsible stakeholder” to a “strategic competitor,” the U.S. government’s assessment of China has changed dramatically in recent years. China has emerged as a truly global actor, impacting every region and every major issue area. To better address the implications for American policy and the multilateral order, Brookings scholars are undertaking a two-year project—“Global China: Assessing China’s Growing Role in the World”—intended to furnish policymakers and the public with a new empirical baseline for understanding China’s regional and global ambitions.

Convened by Brookings Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy Bruce Jones, the initiative will draw not only on Brookings’s deep bench of China and East Asia experts, but also the tremendous breadth of the institution’s security, strategy, regional studies, technological, and economic development experts. By tapping a range of resident and non-resident Brookings scholars, the project will assess the trajectory of China’s influence in Asia and other regions, as well as its growing influence on key issue domains and institutions.

Areas of focus will include the trajectory of China’s domestic institutions and foreign policy; strategic competition and great power rivalry; the emergence of critical technologies; East Asian security; China’s influence in key regions from Europe to Southeast Asia; and China’s impact on global governance and norms.

Themes

Domestic politics and foreign policy

How do President Xi Jinping’s personal ambitions and the centralization of power in the Chinese Communist Party affect China’s approach to foreign policy?

Domains of strategic competition

What are the implications of Chinese activity across various strategic domains — security, infrastructure, economic statecraft, and more — for the United States?