What Do the Chinese Want?

by Srikanth Kondapalli

As China rose to become the second-largest economy in the world a decade-and-a-half ago and began knocking at the gates of global and regional orders, an intriguing question arose about what do the Chinese want in the emerging world order and their responses to external and internal stimuli.

To answer this, we need to analyse recent history and China’s evolving views and actions. At the official level, as Dai Bingguo, then State Councillor, mentioned in 2009, China seeks to protect its basic political system, regime stability, overall national security, sovereignty and national territory, and sustained economic development.

However, it is much deeper than this. In the process of its economic rise, Beijing made several commitments to those who helped its ascendancy. Foremost, China made pledges to the African countries on assistance and aid during the 1950s and 60s when Premier Zhou Enlai conducted an “African safari” to galvanise support. This resulted in China becoming a UN member, displacing Taiwan from the Security Council and in the midst of Western opposition. Mao Zedong said at that moment: “it is our African brothers who have carried us into the UN”.

Today, China is the largest trading partner with the African countries for one and a half decades running and one of the largest creditors to the Continent. Of course, China’s views changed on the underdeveloped world and its equations. China today prioritises “major country relations”, meaning the United States, Russia and the European Union, and not “developing countries”, who form the third tier of importance in its foreign policy strategy. Moreover, 22 out of 55 African countries are indebted to China, although its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure projects are spread. So are its telecommunications giants like Huawei and ZTE, and EVs like BYD cars.

While in the UN, China played no major role in the earlier decades. However, today it is taking the lead, along with Russia, in exercising veto power. It has vetoed 17 times in the last decade, along with Russia, out of its total of 18 vetoes since 1972. In its first veto in 1972, China blocked Bangladesh’s entry into the United Nations. In another change, China, along with Russia, has articulated about global governance, instead of the rule of law. More significantly, at one time China headed five of 15 UN organisations, giving it enormous global influence.

These include, currently, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, and previously, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the International Maritime Organisation, the International Telecommunication Union and UNIDO. China served six times on the 47-member Human Rights Council and intervened on state-led economic growth, while blocking individual-based civil liberties.

A second major pledge China made was to the United States, which helped in admitting Beijing into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001. The US also helped China rise by diverting investments, technologies and managerial techniques, while also nudging its allies in Europe, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore to do the same. Such compliance resulted in China increasing its trade from about $500 billion in 2001 to $6 trillion in 2025 and GDP from $1.3 trillion to about $19 trillion in the same period.

China built trade surpluses with most countries in the world, while imposing non-trade barriers on many countries’ exports to China. In September 2025, China declared that it no longer seeks special and differential treatment benefits under the “developing country” category in WTO agreements.

By following the “dual circulation” strategy of gradually reducing exports and increasing domestic consumption, China is restructuring its economy to reduce dependence on the West. Also, after US President Donald Trump announced tariffs in his first and second terms, China began jettisoning Western links, diversifying trade and depleting any “China Plus One” strategies.

China had argued for several years that the US is a declining power. The US conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan previously, and the current ones in Venezuela and Iran, have all strengthened China’s view of imminent structural changes in global and regional orders. China sees this as an opportune moment in contemporary history, and President Xi Jinping called this as “profound changes unseen in a century”.

In conjunction with its rise, China also began planning to tweak the regional and global orders. Mao Zedong alluded in 1949 to “setting up a different kitchen”, which at that time was primarily concerned with Taiwan, but today it implies China wanting to be at the helm of affairs.

China undertook many initiatives in the last decade to expand its outreach, including the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation along with Russia and others, the BRI since 2013, and four global initiatives in development, security, civilisation and governance issues.

China also proposed in 2013 a “community of shared destiny” with an eye on potential allies. While some of these, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank of the BRICS, have functional relations with global financial institutions, others, such as the BRI and the four global initiatives, are under China’s exclusive leadership. This indicates a gradual transition from status quoist positions to China’s revisionist ambitions.

It was no surprise that at the 19th Communist Party Congress in 2017, President Xi suggested that China had entered a “new era” of “moving closer to the centre stage”. By 2049, Xi predicted that China would become “a global leader of composite national strength and international influence”.

While China’s leaders have different strategies – for instance, Deng Xiaoping’s “keep a low profile” (taoguang yanghui) and Xi’s “strive for achievement” (fenfa youwei) – both have stuck to what Mao laid down in the formative years of the People’s Republic. That is, Mao wanted China to be at the “centre of gravity in Asia”. While such an objective is fulfilled today, as seen in China’s number one position in GDP, the largest defence budget, the largest armed forces, the highest number of nuclear warheads, the largest foreign exchange reserves, and in other categories in Asia, China wants to be number one in the world, by displacing regional rivals in Asia and the US at the global level.

Cumulatively, as China has risen, it has unveiled grand plans that impact the current international order in finance, supply chains, technology, defence, geopolitics, and others. Even if US President Trump’s suggestion for G-2 is taken as a temporary measure to ward off losses in the Iran conflict, it is clear that China is making inroads into the regional and global orders by following its structured road map for “well-off society” formation by the 2021, 2035 and 2049 deadlines for “socialist modernisation” and the realisation of the China dream and rejuvenation – essentially code words for China’s domination.

In the run-up to such a road map for building a Sino-centric world order, there are many possibilities. Foremost, while G-2 exists in many forms between the US and China, there are also prospects for turning this into a bipolar world order, a prospect China would like to minimise any open military conflict with the US. China is likely to focus on building capabilities. Xi alluded to the Thucydides trap.

However, China’s indirect support to Russia in Ukraine, Palestine against Israel, and Iran against the US indicates more of a shadow-boxing rather than a direct conflict between the US and China. The Taiwan Strait is another testing arena but is unlikely to see major conflict, given the potential destruction on all sides.

Thus, China is inching towards its stated objectives at the Asian and global levels. However, many uncertainties remain, including cataclysmic “black swan” events, the strengthening of the US and its allies, or internal challenges in China.

*****

Srikanth Kondapalli is a Professor in Chinese Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. The views expressed here are personal.

This article can be reproduced provided the author and the Politeia Research Foundation receive due acknowledgement, and it is not used for commercial purposes. The copyright will remain with the Politeia Research Foundation ©️PRF.