The Four Seasons of Xi’s Foreign Policy

Jonathan Czin CLM Issue 89 September 2026.pdf

Download PDF • 480KB

China’s foreign policy under Xi Jinping thus far has had three distinct phases, oscillating between a predominantly proactive foreign policy and a more reactive posture. When Xi was heir-apparent, the Global Financial Crisis precipitated the most consequential debate in Chinese politics in the 21^st century – whether China should continue adhering to Deng’s Xiaoping guidance that China should “hide its capabilities and bide its time” or whether it was time to “show and go.” While Xi did not visibly weigh in on that debate, upon taking the reins of power he moved adroitly and with alacrity to parlay the power he was rapidly amassing at home into a more proactive foreign policy abroad. During his first term, Xi made moves that forced other powers, including even the United States, to react to China’s gambits on the world stage. Yet when President Trump launched his first trade war against China in 2018, Xi was uncharacteristically unprepared, and the trade war robbed Xi of much of the initiative that had characterized Xi’s first term. That more halting and hesitant foreign policy, especially toward Washington, persisted until the closing months of the Biden administration, when China began responding more quickly and forcefully to U.S. export controls. Over the course of Xi’s third term, his foreign policy has evolved to look much more like that in his first term. After the second Trump administration folded its punishing new tariff regime in the face of Chinese countermeasures, Xi demonstrated a newfound willingness to play offense rather than defense – though that offense has primarily been targeted at U.S. allies and partners rather than the United States itself. As Xi lays the groundwork to secure a fourth term next year, we may be seeing portents of an even more proactive and assertive fourth season in Chinese foreign policy in the coming years.

China’s foreign policy under Xi Jinping thus far has been characterized by three distinct phases, oscillating between a predominantly proactive foreign policy and a more reactive posture. Like the meteorological seasons, each of these seasons in Xi’s foreign policy has had outliers amid an obvious prevailing climate – especially in the shoulder periods between seasons. During his first term, Xi capitalized on an opening to pivot away from Deng Xiaoping’s dictum that China should “hide its capabilities and bide its time” on the world stage.[1] Xi’s opportunity to shift Beijing’s foreign policy arose due to the robust debate among Chinese elites in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis about whether to continue cleaving to Deng’s dictum, or whether instead it was time to “show and go.” Then President Hu Jintao, in a characteristically tepid conciliatory gesture, made some modifications to the guidance to assuage the hawks, adding the tentative phrase “actively accomplish something” to China’s official policy formulation. Xi, upon taking the reins of power, moved quickly and adroitly to parlay the power he was amassing at home into a more proactive foreign policy abroad. Indeed, the hallmark of Xi’s foreign policy was not only its assertiveness but its focus on taking the initiative – and that was the real departure. Whereas for years Chinese foreign policy had been primarily (if not exclusively) reactive, Xi was comfortable making moves that forced other powers, including even the United States, to react to China’s gambits on the world stage.

Yet Xi’s Marxian materialism has tutored him to be closely attuned to the “correlation of forces” and the capacity or willingness of the capitalist powers to avail themselves of the leverage at their disposal. To be sure, Xi’s foreign policy outlook is deeply rooted in Marxist-Leninist ideology, as reflected in his congenital distrust of the United States and his Leninist inclination to see the U.S. as a decadent, declining but dangerous power. The narrative below suggests that while Xi is an ideologue in terms of his diagnoses of international relations, his prescriptions are rooted in calculations of hard power. When Xi feels confident in the power at his disposal, he tends to press his advantage. As we have seen in Xi’s handling of domestic politics, he prefers to have the initiative – and keep his rivals on the back foot. But when Xi feels boxed in or uncertain, he tends to become more circumspect rather than lash out.

Indeed, Xi’s predilection for taking the initiative did not survive contact with the first Trump administration, which caught Xi uncharacteristically unprepared, relegating him to a largely reactive posture as he and his lieutenants groped around for adequate responses to the blows of the first trade war. That defensive crouch toward the United States persisted for the most part until the closing months of the Biden administration when China began responding with greater alacrity to U.S. export controls ahead of a second Trump administration – and a second trade war with the United States. As the second Trump administration quickly folded its punishing new tariff regime in the face of Chinese countermeasures, Xi demonstrated a newfound willingness to play offense rather than defense – though that offense has primarily been targeted at U.S. allies

It is important to note that even as Xi’s foreign policy has oscillated between reactive and proactive approaches, some crucial elements have remained consistent across his tenure. Ironically, the Biden administration’s China policy mantra “invest, align, compete” would be an apt summation of Xi’s foreign policy during his tenure: he has invested in key sectors at home and he has aligned with select partners, all with an eye toward competition with the United States. Perhaps the most notable constant across these years has been the deepening entente with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which has been a centerpiece of Xi’s foreign policy since the earliest days of his tenure, when, notably, he made his first state visit as president to Moscow.[2] Russia’s war against Ukraine – and Trump’s desire for an accommodation with both Beijing and Moscow – have reinforced the logic propelling that relationship.[3] Namely, Beijing believes that a straitened United States cannot simultaneously confront an aligned China and Russia.[4] Even a conclusion to the war in Ukraine is unlikely to change that assessment. The second constant has been China’s longstanding courtship of countries across the Global South.

The Prelude: Recapitulating the Debate over “Hide and Bide”

The story of Xi’s foreign policy, like so many other elements of his policy agenda, goes back to his five-year apprenticeship as heir-apparent. Just six months after Xi became China’s vice president, the world was shaken by the Global Financial Crisis. The fallout – and China’s relative resilience – precipitated the most consequential debate in Chinese politics in the 21^st century. It was not about economic reform, nor about China’s incipient and circumscribed political liberalization, as many Western observers would have expected. Instead, the debate centered on whether “hide and bide” should continue to guide China’s foreign policy.[5] A growing and increasingly loud swath of commentators and party elites believed that this subdued policy no longer fit the world’s then third-largest economy – arguing instead that China’s moment on the international stage had arrived, and that it should instead pursue a more proactive foreign policy.[6] This debate percolated in Chinese politics during the next two years, and Hu Jintao, a diligent follower of Deng’s dictums and his top foreign policy lieutenant, tried to tamp down this debate.[7] Indeed, when China did take assertive actions during the latter years of Hu’s tenure, these actions often seemed to occur despite Hu’s preferences rather than because of them – as when the PLA tested its newest stealth aircraft in the middle of a visit by then U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, which caught Hu unaware.[8]

With his keen political antennae, Xi likely recognized that even though Hu had quieted the debate, advocates for a more proactive foreign policy were clearly the more dynamic political force. All Hu had done was put a lid on a boiling pot; the steam was still building. And Xi would have been sympathetic to the arguments of the Young Turks in the system. After all, Xi’s own political career and climb through the party ranks had occurred alongside China’s economic reforms and the dramatic changes in China’s fortunes they had birthed.[9] Xi had served in the localities that were the party’s sanctioned incubators for the most far-reaching economic reforms, and he spent decades in the dynamic and prosperous coastal provinces.[10] These experiences would only have reinforced Xi’s congenital confidence in the party, and his own self-assurance. Yet as heir-apparent, Xi could do little but watch, learn, – and prepare.

The First Season: From “Hide and Bide” to “Show and Go”

Politics, personality, and experience all pushed Xi toward a foreign policy in which China would no longer passively protect its interests but instead would increasingly engage the world on its own terms. Xi likely saw multiple political advantages to shifting to a more proactive foreign policy. He not only recognized the greater dynamism among the more hawkish elites, but he also probably realized that co-opting the more strident voices would cover his flanks politically: by staking out a relatively hawkish foreign policy, Xi, as the new general secretary, could obviate the potentially damaging criticisms that plagued Hu for being soft or hapless.[11] And Xi’s tack toward a more assertive foreign policy was not only instrumental – it was also sincere. With Xi’s ascent, the forces lobbying for a more forceful foreign policy found a willing vessel whose personal self-assurance converged with a shared confidence in China’s own capacity.[12] Although Xi was not alone in having this experience – many colleagues from his generation would have had similar experiences of a resurgent China throughout their political lives – it seems unlikely that Xi’s more diffident rival in the succession, former Premier Li Keqiang, would have chosen to pursue a similarly proactive foreign policy.[13] Indeed, it would have been difficult for Li, or a more cautious alternative, to rein in the forces arguing for greater global assertiveness in perpetuity, and Li would have likely spent much of his first term placating or pushing back against criticisms that he was being too passive in foreign policy. 

Xi moved early to reposition China’s foreign policy, leveraging his newfound power as general secretary to lay the bureaucratic groundwork for this shift. In October 2013, Xi hosted an unusual conference of the party’s foreign policy establishment that focused on China’s diplomacy along its periphery – just a month before hosting the Third Plenum, the first plenum since he became general secretary, which drew far more attention at the time for its feigned embrace of reform.[14] Yet as Michael Swaine has noted in China Leadership Monitor, at that foreign policy meeting Xi began the process of moving away from Deng’s guidance by emphasizing that China should “strive for achievement” in foreign policy.[15]

Indeed, in September 2013 – just one month prior to his peripheral diplomacy conference – Xi introduced his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) (originally known as One Belt, One Road) during visits to neighboring Kazakhstan and Indonesia.[16] This effort would later become one of Xi’s signature foreign policy initiatives, encapsulating in a mere four Chinese characters the expansive global reach of China’s economic ambitions. In substance, the BRI was a logical extension of China’s growing global economic reach that was already well underway.[17] But politically and diplomatically, it marked a departure from the low-key and even self-effacing efforts of his predecessors, and eventually it drew in even U.S. allies like Italy. Just a little more than a year later, in 2016, China launched its Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which attracted a wide range of members, including close U.S. allies like the United Kingdom – despite U.S. efforts to keep them from signing up for a Chinese alternative to existing international financial institutions.[18]

The more hard-edge aspects of Xi’s foreign policy quickly came into focus as well. Xi was especially interested in asserting China’s sovereignty claims and enhancing its military presence in the Western Pacific. The opening shot came in November 2013, when Beijing established an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea, overlapping with existing ADIZs from Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, to bolster China’s claim to the Senkaku Islands in its long-running territorial dispute with Japan.[19] One year later, Xi chaired a highly unusual Foreign Affairs Work Conference, at which Xi made another shift in China’s foreign policy by emphasizing “major country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics,” a reflection of Xi’s more proactive approach to foreign policy, positioning China among the great powers.[20] This conference was also notable because, prior to Xi’s tenure, such Foreign Affairs Work Conferences were rare events that centered on epoch-defining moments in China’s foreign policy, like the collapse of the Soviet Union or the opening to the U.S. in the early 1970s.[21] Previously, these meetings had not been the vehicle for a new leader to put his imprimatur on China’s foreign policy.

In 2014, Xi’s began to realize his ambitions as China began to reclaim land around various features it had long claimed in the South China Sea.[22] While China’s rival claimants – especially Vietnam – had reclaimed land in the South China Sea, the scope and scale of Xi’s concerted campaign dwarfed those earlier efforts.[23] Indeed, by the following year China had reclaimed more than 3,000 acres of territory in the South China Sea, which during the following two years China would then fortify, turning them into military outposts sprinkled across one of the world’s most important commercial waterways.[24] It was a spectacular feat of engineering and one of the most remarkable faits accomplis pulled off by a great power in the Pacific since the end of World War II. Indeed, Xi’s island-building campaign left Washington bereft of good options for dealing with this challenge.

The island-building campaign was a signature Xi move. It seemed to come out of nowhere and it happened quickly – especially for such a major construction project. Like his anticorruption campaign, this move deprived his rivals of the time and space to formulate an adequate response. By the time the Philippines took China to an international tribunal to dispute Chinese claims, it was already too late – and China simply rejected the tribunal’s ruling.[25] The Obama administration did intensify its Freedom of Navigation Operations in the South China Sea during this period, with U.S. Navy ships sailing in close proximity to these features to demonstrate that the United States did not recognize China's maritime claims under international law..[26] But rather than flouting China’s claims, these operations seemed to underscore just how far away the United States was from this theater – and just how formidable China’s more proximate presence was.[27] The move was aggressive, but Xi avoided a full-blown crisis with his most powerful rival, the United States. Indeed, throughout this period, Xi continued meeting with President Obama and even signed on to the Paris Agreement on climate change.[28] The period highlighted Xi’s unexpected foreign policy adroitness – he effectively used diplomacy to elide opposition to his flexing of China’s power.

The Second Season: Winds of Change

When Donald Trump defied all polling and expectations – including his own – to become president of the United States in 2016, it forced Xi to deal with a character who differed markedly both from the figures Xi had grown up with in China’s political system and from those he had dealt with abroad. Xi has been shaped by a political environment in which impulsiveness is dangerous. His father’s boss and mentor, the iconic and sometimes iconoclastic reformer Hu Yaobang was known for his outspokenness – which ultimately accelerated his political demise, extinguishing freewheeling openness from the ranks of China’s leadership to this day.[29] Meanwhile, the major international figures during Xi’s first term – Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Shinzo Abe, and even Vladimir Putin – were not exactly impulsive or erratic, though Putin does of course have a penchant for violence. The brash and bold leaders Xi did have to deal with – like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un – seemed to irritate him.[30] But while Korea’s Kim was clearly a junior partner to Xi, Trump was the leader of China’s most formidable and dangerous rival.

As a result, when Trump launched his trade war against China in 2018, Xi was uncharacteristically unprepared – despite having convened another Foreign Affairs Work Conference just as the first major tranche of U.S. tariffs was coming online.[31] At that conference, Xi focused on China’s achievements in “major power diplomacy,” but during the coming months Xi and his lieutenants groped for adequate responses to the trade war.[32] Their guiding principle seemed to be “no concessions; no escalation.”[33] The self-assured Xi was loath to make major concessions to the United States, but he also recognized China’s economic dependencies on the United States, and he did not want to make a bad situation even worse.[34] China was left making symbolic gestures to vent its ire, but it lacked the tools to impose any real costs in return.[35] For example, in response to U.S. tariffs, Beijing imposed reciprocal tariffs – but given the gross trade imbalance between the sides, which were the source of Trump’s grievances with China, Beijing’s tariffs in fact had far less impact on the United States than the Trump administration’s tariffs had on China.[36] Ultimately, the most important aspect of the purchasing agreement to which Xi ultimately acquiesced as part of the Phase I trade deal was that it bought China relief from the onslaught.[37] Trump’s aggressive tactics had put Xi on the back foot, robbing Beijing of much – if not all – of the initiative it had enjoyed during Xi’s first term, particularly vis-à-vis the United States.

Pushback from the Trump administration, among other factors, even helped spur Beijing to rejigger the branding around Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative. Although the U.S. lacked the instruments to compete dollar for dollar with the BRI, Washington’s rhetorical bludgeoning of the initiative – which included both well-substantiated accusations about the program’s exploitation of local economies as well as dubious claims about so-called “debt trap diplomacy” – did elicit a response Beijing.[38] Beijing not only testily defended its projects from the podium at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in its daily press briefings, by 2021 it had refocused the BRI on projects that were “small and beautiful” – a turn of phrase that unwittingly implied that previous BRI projects were “big and ugly,” as many in fact were.[39] 

That halting and hesitant foreign policy toward Washington persisted even as the party experienced a surprising surge in self-confidence amid the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and ahead of the party’s centenary celebrations in July 2021 – and as the outgoing Trump administration unleased a fusillade of competitive actions toward China out of frustration with China’s role in the outbreak of the pandemic. Like the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, many Chinese elites were impressed with China’s relative resilience during the early phases of the crisis.[40] After the initial outbreak, China at first beat the West in producing vaccines (though they were ultimately inferior to those produced later by Operation Warp Speed).[41] And the draconian mass surveillance and lockdowns associated with Xi’s signature zero COVID policy proved relatively effective in containing early variants of the virus, even at a huge social toll.[42]

During this period, the term the “East is rising, the West is declining” proliferated in Chinese discourse.[43] While Trump’s erratic decision-making knocked Beijing off balance for the short term, a growing number of Chinese officials and scholars believed that Trump was accelerating the long-term decline of the United States.[44] A growing chorus of voices also picked up on Xi’s turn of phrase that the world was seeing “changes unseen in a century,” i.e., a shift in the international balance of power unlike anything since World War I.[45] The implication was that China was the primary beneficiary of this shifting balance. The dramatic events of January 6, 2021 – when supporters of President Trump believed his spurious claims that the election results were fraudulent, and therefore opposed the peaceful transfer of power, stormed the U.S. Capitol – only reinforced this view.[46]

Yet, as Allie Matthias and I note in a previous issue of China Leadership Monitor, China’s declinist views of the United States did not produce a bevy of new foreign policy initiatives – in part, at least, because of the constraints imposed by the ongoing pandemic.[47] Indeed, China’s reactive posture remained intact even as the Biden administration rationalized rather than replaced many of Trump’s China policies and articulated a similarly explicit focus on competing with China.[48]. The Biden administration’s focus on working with allies and partners on China-related issues, particularly new initiatives like AUKUS and elevation of the Quad, likely exacerbated Beijing’s longstanding fears of encirclement and reinforced Beijing’s reactive posture.[49] China often complained but rarely retaliated against these actions, mustering only rather anemic policy responses to the Biden administration’s most consequential moves to outcompete China – in part because it had not yet crafted any countermeasures that would enable it to respond adequately.[50] For example, when the Biden administration unveiled its sweeping export control regime in October 2022, Beijing hardly registered a response, and it even kept Xi’s meeting with President Biden the following month on a glide path.[51] Beijing did not begin to respond until the following summer, when it announced export controls on two critical minerals, germanium and gallium.[52] In 2022, China did start unveiling a string of new Global Initiatives, but these lacked the heft – and more importantly, the resources – of the initiatives of Xi’s first term, like the BRI or the AIIB.[53]

The most notable, even glaring, exception to this pattern of Chinese reactivity in these years was Beijing’s choice, in the summer of 2022, to instigate a near-crisis over then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.[54] In retrospect, this moment appears more like the beginning of Xi’s gradual return to a more muscular and assertive foreign policy, which seems to be Xi’s preferred posture. Two years earlier, the Trump administration had sent then Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to Taiwan, where he met with Taiwan President Lai Ching-te.[55] China complained but did not instigate a crisis. And a quarter of a century earlier, in 1997, then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich had visited Taiwan in the wake of a major Taiwan crisis, without provoking more than muted grumbling from Beijing. While it would have been difficult for Xi merely to shrug off the visit by a Speaker from the same party as the President, neither precedent nor politics bound him to climb so far up the escalatory ladder. Politically, it is possible that Xi’s flexing secured his political position at home ahead of that fall’s party congress – and obviate any possible internal criticism that he had been insufficiently tough with the Americans. After all, Xi would demonstrate his political dominance just two months later at the 20^th Party Congress, when he evicted his predecessor, Hu Jintao, from the proceedings and excluded Hu’s acolytes from the new leadership lineup.[56] Who would have had the temerity to question Xi in the run-up to that party congress if he had chosen a more restrained approach? It seems more likely that Xi availed himself of the opportunity to establish a new normal for China’s military presence in the Taiwan Strait – much as he had done in the South China Sea eight years earlier.

The Third Season: The Best Defense is a Good Offense

Over the course of Xi’s third term, his foreign policy has evolved to look much more like that in his first term than one might have expected, given the vicissitudes in international relations during this period and Beijing’s supposed desire for “stability” as it was dealing with an economic slowdown at home.[57] At the end of December 2023, Xi convened yet another Foreign Affairs Work Conference.[58] Given the timing, the convocation likely focused on the impending elections in Taiwan and the United States – and the potential return of the Trump administration. The meeting was also a reaffirmation of Xi’s personal focus on and control over foreign policy. Xi has now convened as many Foreign Affairs Work Conferences during his tenure as all his predecessors combined.[59]

But Beijing held off on resorting to more forceful measures until after the U.S. presidential elections, to avoid it becoming a campaign issue and thereby further hardening U.S. posture toward China. Yet by January of 2025, Beijing was responding more quickly and forcefully to the outgoing administration’s efforts to hand off an even more expansive export-control regime to the Trump administration – namely, its so-called AI Diffusion Rule.[60] To some extent, Beijing was – belatedly – responding proportionally to U.S. moves. After getting metaphorically punched by the first Trump administration, the party had gone back to the gym and pumped itself up in anticipation of another trade war with the United States, devising a suite of economic tools and authorities that mirror the punitive devices of U.S. economic statecraft, as Evan Medeiros and Andrew Polk have documented.[61] At the time, many commentators opined that Beijing was “sending a signal” to the incoming administration.[62]

But that signal seemed to have been lost in transition, as the new Trump administration failed to appreciate the suite of tools and countermeasures that Beijing had built up since the first Trump administration. In fairness, U.S. alumni of this first trade war seemed to have learned that if the United States pushed China, then China would in fact be quite restrained in its response and would instead seek an off-ramp.[63] The experiences of the Biden administration would have only reinforced that assessment.[64]

Yet over the course of Trump’s first year in office, Xi grew increasingly comfortable employing these tools as he shifted from defense back to offense for the first time in a decade. Rather than trying to mollify Trump after the unveiling of Washington’s Liberation Day tariffs, Xi chose to demonstrate resolve toward Washington as escalation between the two sides elevated U.S. tariffs to 145 percent – imposing a de facto embargo on Chinese goods.[65] Xi not only showcased China’s willingness to take the pain but also that it could likewise impose targeted pain on the United States through its control of the supply chain for rare earth elements.[66] In the months that followed, the main thrust of U.S. policy was to find an accommodation with China and to negotiate a ceasefire in the contretemps that the U.S. had instigated.

The high water mark of Xi’s effort to regain the initiative in its relationship with Washington came on October 9, 2025, when Beijing announced expansive export controls on supply chains for rare earth elements – just weeks before Xi’s first planned in-person encounter with Trump during his second term.[67] Xi likely judged he could strike at that moment because the Trump administration had spent the months after Liberation Day trying to mollify Beijing ahead of this summit by making major concessions on technology and Taiwan – two issues that had been the chief sources of friction in the bilateral relationship before this year.[68] Beijing would have interpreted these accommodations not as gestures of goodwill but as a sign that it had the upper hand. Beijing may very well have seen the September expansion of U.S. export controls not only as a provocation but also as a pretext to roll out its own export controls, which almost certainly required months, not days, of planning.[69] The mere fact that Xi was willing to push back so forcefully so close to a planned summit with the United States was itself a marked departure from Chinese foreign policy, which typically tends to publicly downplay differences in the run-up to such important confabs. And the fact that the administration chose not to retaliate and to keep the summit on track reinforced Beijing’s assessment that its leverage over the United States would prevent Washington from retaking the initiative in the competition – at least for a time.

For its part, Beijing has not necessarily been looking for another kerfuffle with the United States. Instead, it has been taking advantage of the Trump administration’s preoccupation with its multi-front trade war during its first year, and its actual war with Iran during its second year, to fortify its own geopolitical position. Beijing has done this in part by adopting a two-pronged approach to bolster its own position in the Indo-Pacific region: pushing harder against those in the region that challenge China’s sovereignty claims, while pulling its stalwart partners and so-called swing states closer into its orbit.[70] This policy was on vivid display last summer, when in the space of two weeks Xi hosted a heterogeneous group of leaders that included everyone from India’s Narendra Modi to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.[71] Meanwhile, China has been steadily advancing its territorial claims along its periphery without eliciting much discernible pushback from the Trump administration.[72] As he did in 2013, Xi prefaced this push along China’s periphery with a similar conference, elevating it in this iteration to a Central Conference on Work Related to Neighboring Countries.[73]

The most conspicuous evidence of China’s reinvigorated assertiveness has been its pressure campaign against Japan since the end of last year. Ostensibly, the campaign began in response to Prime Minister Takaichi’s comments in parliament that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would implicate Japan’s national security interests – a statement so obvious that its most remarkable feature is that no prior Japanese prime minister had articulated the point publicly.[74] However, the timing of Beijing’s response – coming immediately on the heels of Xi’s meeting with Trump in South Korea – suggests that Beijing was also looking to probe whether Washington would jeopardize the gentleman’s agreement between the two leaders for the sake of an ally.[75] So far, the Trump administration’s muted response give Beijing little reason to change course.[76] 

China has adopted a similar approach toward Europe. Instead of pursuing a “charm offensive” with European countries after Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, as many anticipated, Beijing has chosen to accentuate rather than alleviate the conundrum facing U.S. allies that been battered by the Trump administration’s tariffs and rhetorical fusillades.[77] Beijing’s ultimate goal is to demonstrate to these countries that they need to accommodate China – especially on trade, in the case of the EU – as the United States becomes a less dependable partner.[78] The parade of European heads of state who have traveled to Beijing to meet Xi over the past year has undoubtedly validated Beijing’s view that a recalcitrant policy is superior to a conciliatory policy.[79] Moreover, after forcing a stalemate with the mighty United States in its 2026 trade war, Beijing is confident that it can squash any European trade measures aimed at stemming the onslaught of Chinese goods that are hollowing out key portions of Europe’s manufacturing sector.[80]

The Fourth Season: Winter is Coming?

As Xi lays the groundwork to secure a fourth term next year, we may be seeing portents of an even more proactive and assertive Chinese foreign policy. Most notably, the five-year plan that the PRC promulgated in March 2026 notes that “a profound shift is taking place in the international balance of power” and cites accelerating “breakthroughs … in the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation” as creating “positive factors” for China to act more proactively abroad.[81] This is authoritative, affirmative acknowledgment that China will have opportunities to take the initiative not only in the near term but over the next five years. Some observers have noted China will want “stability” ahead of next year’s party congress.[82] But China’s response to the Pelosi visit in July 2022 – just a few months before the last party congress – should cause analysts to interrogate the viability of this old shibboleth in the China-watching community.[83] If stability truly had been Xi’s overriding objective, it would not have made sense for him to opt for such a vociferous response. Xi was all too willing to nearly precipitate a near-crisis with the United States just two months before the last party congress, which seemed to play little to no role in restraining his response to the Pelosi visit. If anything, it is possible that Pelosi’s visit afforded Xi an opportunity to flex ahead of the party congress and enhance his position at home.

After the next party congress in 2027, there is also the question of how Xi’s aging – and the concomitant intensifying focus on the succession in Zhongnanhai – could shape Beijing’s decision-making during Xi’s fourth term. Xi will definitely be dealing with an entirely new Central Military Commission because he has already purged all but one member, and many of his old associates on the Politburo Standing Committee will likely retire at the next party congress – opening slots for senior officials with whom Xi may have a more tenuous relationship.[84] The risk here is that Xi’s new crop of top lieutenants, lacking the longstanding ties with Xi that the current cohort has, may try to enhance their national security credentials and ingratiate themselves with Xi by outflanking their rivals – and calling for a more hawkish policy, either toward the United States, Taiwan, or a rival territorial claimant like Japan, the Philippines, or India. This would be a “race to the bottom” dynamic in which the incentive to flex leads to a riskier foreign policy than any official would advocate on his own, all things being equal. However, Xi will be quite experienced at this point and may doubt the wisdom and the experience of his new, and to him, much younger, lieutenants. Moreover, barring a health crisis, Xi will likely keep his hand firmly on the till of foreign policy until the very end, just like Mao and Deng before him.

Nonetheless, the case for a more restrained Chinese foreign policy in the coming years seems more tenuous at this point. One can reasonably conjecture that Beijing will have to prioritize coping with its nasty elite politics and economic malaise at home. But so far, these two dynamics have accompanied rather impeded Xi’s reversion to a more assertive foreign policy. For Beijing to change course on foreign policy, an exogenous shock would likely have to impinge on its export machine or technological strides – something akin, perhaps, to the Global Financial Crisis that helped propel Xi down his current course.

Alternatively, one can argue that President Trump’s own foreign policy initiative and his unpredictability could knock Xi onto the back foot again. But after a decade of pondering how to deal with Trump, Beijing seems to feel comfortable with its current approach toward managing the Trump administration, as reflected in the rosy assessments by Chinese analysts following Trump’s recent visit to Beijing – and the emerging consensus that China’s ability to force the United States into a stalemate is a sign that China has positioned itself as a peer to the United States.[85] Trump’s moves in what Beijing sees as tertiary theaters, like Latin America and the Middle East, have reinforced rather than undermined their perspective.[86]

The most likely moments to give Xi pause in the coming year are the 2028 twin elections in Taiwan and the United States.[87] Xi may very well want to hold off on any big foreign policy movements until after those elections, lest he damage his courtship with the opposition KMT in Taiwan or undermine the American drift away from concerted competition with China. Indeed, in the run-up to the 2024 election, Beijing made conciliatory gestures toward Washington, such as reviving counternarcotics cooperation and otherwise trying to avoid it becoming an election issue.[88] But after 2028, the rationale for restraint may well slacken unless the United States is able to demonstrate to Beijing that it is serious and focused on competition with China – and that at least some of the remaining U.S. partners are willing to cooperate on China issues in a meaningful manner.

At the moment, Beijing seems appropriately skeptical that this will transpire – a notion reflected in its assessment of the acceleration of multi-polarization. Indeed, perhaps the most important brake on Xi pursing an even more aggressive foreign policy is his assessment that the United States is in decline.[89] As long as Xi thinks time is on his side, he has little reason to provoke a premature confrontation with his most formidable rival. In his ongoing poker match with the United States across four presidential administrations, Xi has learned when to hold them – and when to fold them.

About the Contributor

Jonathan A. Czin is the Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies and co-host of The Beijing Brief podcast at the Brookings Institution’s China Center. He is a former member of the Senior Analytic Service at the CIA and was Director for China in the National Security Council from 2021 to 2023. He would like to thank Allie Matthias and Calvin Chen for their exceptional research for this article. All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the U.S. Government. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying U.S. Government authentication of information or endorsement of the author’s views.

Notes

[1] “中国跨世纪外交的光辉历程（摘要）” [The Glorious Course of China's Cross-Century Diplomacy (Excerpt)], Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, October 17, 2002, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/web/ziliao_674904/zt_674979/ywzt_675099/zt2002_675989/2319_676055/200210/t20021017_7965253.shtml; Charles Clover, "Xi Jinping Signals Departure from Low-Profile Policy," Financial Times, October 20, 2017, https://www.ft.com/content/05cd86a6-b552-11e7-a398-73d59db9e399.

[2] For Xi’s focus on China-Russia relations, see Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, "Xi Jinping Arrives in Moscow for State Visit to Russia," March 22, 2013, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/ziliao_674904/zt_674979/ywzt_675099/2013nzt_675233/xjpzxfw_675291/zxxx_675293/201303/t20130322_7955538.shtml; Michael Schuman, “Xi and Putin’s Convenient Friendship,” The New Yorker, May 15, 2015, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/xi-and-putins-convenient-friendship; Scott Neuman, “As Relations with U.S. Sour, Xi Describes Putin as ‘Best Friend’ at Moscow Meeting,” NPR, June 6, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/06/06/730200317/as-relations-with-u-s-sour-xi-describes-putin-as-best-friend-at-moscow-meeting.

[3] Alexander Gabuev, "China's New Vassal: How the War in Ukraine Turned Moscow into Beijing's Junior Partner," Foreign Affairs, no. 5 (September/October 2024), https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/china-russia-vassal-alexander-gabuev; Xiao Bin, “Coordination Reflects Shifts in Relations,” China-US Focus, June 3, 2026, https://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/coordination-reflects-shifts-in-relations.

[4] Zhang Jian [张健], “New Dynamics in China–US–Europe–Russia Interactions and Their Geopolitical Implications,” 现代国际关系 [Contemporary International Relations], no. 5 (June 17, 2026), https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/2I2lLTF4mxQy0UnF2bz9hA; "US Will Get 'Strategic Overdraft' to Confront China, Russia at the Same Time," Global Times, March 21, 2021, https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/china/2021/03/china-210321-globaltimes01.htm.

[5] Michael D. Swaine, "Chinese Views of Foreign Policy in the 19th Party Congress," China Leadership Monitor, no. 55 (Winter 2018), https://www.hoover.org/research/chinese-views-foreign-policy-19th-party-congress.

[6] Yan Xuetong, "How Assertive Should a Great Power Be?" The New York Times, April 1, 2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/opinion/01iht-edyan01.html; Xuetong Yan. “From Keeping a Low Profile to Striving for Achievement.” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 7, no. 2 (2014): 153–84. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48615905; Wang Jisi, "China's Search for a Grand Strategy,” Foreign Affairs, February 20, 2011 https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2011-02-20/chinas-search-grand-strategy.

[7] Dai Bingguo, "Adhere to the Path of Peaceful Development,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, December 6, 2010, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/web/ziliao_674904/zt_674979/ywzt_675099/2011nzt_675363/jianchizouhepingfazhandaolu_675415/201012/t20101206_7956521.shtml.

[8] Andrew Scobell, “The J-20 Episode and Civil-Military Relations in China,” testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, March 10, 2011, 1–3, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/2011/RAND_CT357.pdf; Jeremy Page, “China Stealth Jet Upstages Gates, Hu,” Wall Street Journal, January 12, 2011, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704428004576075042571461586.

[9] Jonathan A. Czin, “China Against China: Xi Jinping Confronts the Downsides of Success,” Foreign Affairs, October 24, 2025, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/against-china-xi-jinping-jonathan-czin; Communist Party Member Network, "Biography of Comrade Xi Jinping," October 25, 2017, https://www.12371.cn/2017/10/25/ARTI1508930367561645.shtml.

[10] Czin, "China Against China”; Communist Party Member Network, "Comrade Xi Jinping Seized Historical Opportunities and Made Historic Contributions to Fujian's Reform and Opening Up: Xi Jinping in Fujian (Part 1)," June 16, 2020, https://www.12371.cn/2020/06/16/ARTI1592272044133110.shtml.

[11] Suisheng Zhao, “Foreign Policy Implications of Chinese Nationalism Revisited: The Strident Turn,” Journal of Contemporary China 22, no. 82 (2013): 535–53, https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2013.766379.

[12] Joseph Fewsmith, "Xi Jinping's Fast Start," China Leadership Monitor, no. 41 (Spring 2013), https://www.hoover.org/research/xi-jinpings-fast-start.

[13] On a resurgent China, see Aaron L. Friedberg, “The Sources of Chinese Conduct: Explaining Beijing’s Assertiveness,” The Washington Quarterly 37, no. 4 (2014)): 133–50. doi:10.1080/0163660X.2014.1002160. For more on Li Keqiang, see Jonathan A. Czin, “Burying Deng: Xi Jinping and the Abnormalization of Chinese Politics,” China Leadership Monitor, no. 83 (March 2025), https://www.prcleader.org/post/burying-deng-xi-jinping-and-the-abnormalization-of-chinese-politics.

[14] “Xi Jinping Delivers Important Speech at the Work Conference on Neighborhood Diplomacy," People's Daily Online, October 25, 2013, http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2013/1025/c1024-23331526.html; "The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee Held in Beijing," Supreme People's Procuratorate of the People's Republic of China, November 13, 2013, https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/tt/201311/t20131113_64295.shtml.

[15] Michael D. Swaine, "Xi Jinping's Address to the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs: Assessing and Advancing Major-Power Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics," China Leadership Monitor, no. 46 (Winter 2015), https://hoover-s3-website.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/clm46ms.pdf.

[16]"Xi Jinping Delivers Important Speech Calling for Joint Building of the 'Silk Road Economic Belt,'" Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, September 7, 2013, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/web/ziliao_674904/zt_674979/dnzt_674981/qtzt/ydyl_675049/zyxw_675051/201309/t20130907_7951524.shtml.

[17] David Dollar, "China's Rise as a Regional and Global Power Enters a New Phase," Brookings Institution, July 20, 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/chinas-rise-as-a-regional-and-global-power-enters-a-new-phase/; Alan Wheatley, "China's Rise to Top Looks Unstoppable," New York Times, August 16, 2010. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/business/global/17inside.html; "China's Foreign Trade,” State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China, June 21, 2012, https://us.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/zt/bps/201206/t20120621_4911395.htm.

[18] Xi Jinping, “Address at the Opening Ceremony of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank,” Beijing, January 16, 2016, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/xw/zyjh/202405/P020240530531094372225.pdf; Jane Perlez, “Hostility from the U.S. as China Lures Allies to New Bank,” March 19, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/world/asia/hostility-from-us-as-china-lures-allies-to-new-bank.html.

[19] “Statement by the Government of the People’s Republic of China on Establishing the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone,” Ministry of National Defense of the PRC, http://eng.mod.gov.cn/Press/2013-11/23/content_4476180.htm; Michael Green, Kathleen Hicks, Zack Cooper, John Schaus, and Jake Douglas, “Counter-Coercion Series: East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone,” Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 13, 2017, https://amti.csis.org/counter-co-east-china-sea-adiz/.

[20] “习近平出席中央外事工作会议并发表重要讲话” [Xi Jinping Attends the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs and Delivers an Important Speech], Xinhua, November 29, 2014, http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2014-11/29/c_1113457723.htm; Xi Jinping, "China Must Have Major-Country Diplomacy with Its Own Characteristics," Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy and China's Diplomacy in the New Era, November 28, 2014, https://cn.chinadiplomacy.org.cn/2019-09/23/content_75236939.shtml.

[21] Michael D. Swaine, “Xi Jinping’s Address to the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs: Assessing and Advancing Major-Power Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics,” China Leadership Monitor, no. 46 (Winter 2015), https://www.hoover.org/research/xi-jinpings-address-central-conference-work-relating-foreign-affairs-assessing-and.

[22] Edward Wong and Jonathan Ansfireld, "To Bolster Its Claims, China Plants Islands in Disputed Waters,” New York Times, June 16, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/world/asia/spratly-archipelago-china-trying-to-bolster-its-claims-plants-islands-in-disputed-waters.html.

[23] ”Vietnam’s Island Building: Double-Standard or Drop in the Bucket?," Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, Center for Strategic and International Studies, May 11, 2016, https://amti.csis.org/vietnams-island-building/.

[24] U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Report to Congress on Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2016, May 13, 2016, https://news.usni.org/2016/05/16/document-pentagon-report-to-congress-on-chinese-military-development.

[25] "The South China Sea Arbitration (The Republic of the Philippines v. The People's Republic of China)," PCA Case No. 2013-19, Permanent Court of Arbitration, July 12, 2016, https://pca-cpa.org/en/cases/7/; Hong Lei, “Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hong Lei’s Remarks on Vietnam’s Statement on the Chinese Government’s Position Paper on Rejecting the Jurisdiction of the Arbitral Tribunal Established at the Request of the Philippines for the South China Sea Arbitration,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, December 12, 2014, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng./xw/fyrbt/fyrbt/202405/t20240530_11349350.html.

[26] Helene Cooper, "Challenging Chinese Claims, U.S. Sends Warship Near Artificial Island Chain," New York Times, October 27, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/world/asia/challenging-chinese-claims-us-sends-warship-near-artificial-island-chain.html.

[27] "An American Warship Sails Through Disputed Waters in the South China Sea," The Economist, October 27, 2015, https://www.economist.com/asia/2015/10/27/an-american-warship-sails-through-disputed-waters-in-the-south-china-sea; Jeff M. Smith, "Innocent Mistake: How a Fumbled Freedom of Navigation Operation Set Back U.S. Interests in the South China Sea," Foreign Affairs, December 3, 2015, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2015-12-03/innocent-mistake.

[28] “Remarks by President Obama and President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China in Joint Press Conference,” White House, September 25, 2015, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/25/remarks-president-obama-and-president-xi-peoples-republic-china-joint/; United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, “China,” https://unfccc.int/node/180417, accessed July 30, 2026.

[29] Joseph Torigian, "What Xi Jinping Learnt from His Father," excerpt from The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2025), China Books Review, June 12, 2025, https://chinabooksreview.com/2025/06/12/xi-father/.

[30] Patricia M. Kim, "Don't Overestimate the Autocratic Alliance: Washington Still Has Significant Leverage Over China, North Korea, and Russia," Foreign Affairs, September 15, 2025, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/dont-overestimate-autocratic-alliance.

[31] Barry Naughton, "Economic Policy under Trade War Conditions: Can China Move Beyond Tit for Tat?" China Leadership Monitor, no. 57 (Fall 2018), https://hoover-s3-website.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/research/docs/clm57-bn-final.pdf.

[32] “Xi Urges Breaking New Ground in Major Country Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics,” Xinhua, June 24, 2018, https://english.www.gov.cn/news/top_news/2018/06/24/content_281476196649386.htm; Bob Davis and Lingling Wei, “‘Bring Me Tariffs’ – How Trump and Xi Drove Their Countries to the Brink of a Trade War,” Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/bring-me-tariffshow-trump-and-xi-drove-their-countries-to-the-brink-of-a-trade-war-1543420440.

[33] "The Facts and China's Position on China-US Economic and Trade Friction," State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China, September 24, 2018, http://www.scio.gov.cn/zfbps/ndhf/2018n/202207/t20220704_130585.html.

[34]"Press Conference on the White Paper 'The Facts and China's Position on China-US Economic and Trade Friction,'" State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China, Ministry of Finance of the People's Republic of China, September 25, 2018, http://www.mof.gov.cn/czxw/201809/t20180925_3026300.htm.

[35] Bob Davis and Lingling Wei, Superpower Showdown: How the Battle between Trump and Xi Threatens a New Cold War (New York: Harper Business, 2020), chaps.10-14.

[36] Chad P. Bown, “China’s Retaliation to Trump’s Tariffs,” Peterson Institute for International Economics, June 22, 2018, https://www.piie.com/blogs/trade-and-investment-policy-watch/2018/chinas-retaliation-trumps-tariffs; Karen M. Sutter, "U.S.-China Tariff Actions Since 2018: An Overview," Congressional Research Service, In Focus IF12990 (February 26, 2026); “How Did the 2018 U.S.-China Trade War Affect China’s Exporters?” Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, updated April 15, 2023, https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/how-did-2018-us-china-trade-war-affect-chinas-exporters.

[37] Chad P. Bown, "The US-China Trade War and Phase One Agreement," Peterson Institute for International Economics, Working Paper 21-2, February 2021, https://www.piie.com/sites/default/files/documents/wp21-2.pdf.

[38] Michael R. Pompeo, "Press Availability With British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt," U.S. Department of State, May 8, 2019, https://2017-2021.state.gov/press-availability-with-british-foreign-secretary-jeremy-hunt/; 侯赛因·阿斯卡里 [Hussein Askary] and 李形 [Li Xing], "揭穿"中国债务陷阱论"的三大要点” [Debunking the 'China Debt Trap Theory': Three Key Points], 习近平外交思想和新时代中国外交 [Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy and Diplomacy of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era], December 3, 2024, https://cn.chinadiplomacy.org.cn/2024-12/03/content_117583537.shtml.

[39] Zhang Xiaosong and An Bei, "Solid and Substantial Achievements: Side Notes on General Secretary Xi Jinping Attending the Third Symposium on the Belt and Road Initiative," Belt and Road Portal, November 21, 2021, https://www.yidaiyilu.gov.cn/p/199884.html; Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, "Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying's Regular Press Conference," August 31, 2018, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/nanhai/chn/fyrbt/201808/t20180831_8522887.htm; "Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang's Regular Press Conference,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, July 3, 2018, https://sg.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/fyrth/201807/t20180703_1781561.htm.

[40] 袁鹏 [Yuan Peng], “中国元首外交凝聚全球战‘疫’信心” [China’s Head-of-State Diplomacy Builds Global Confidence in the Fight against COVID-19], China Institute of International Studies, March 11, 2020, https://www.ciis.org.cn/yjcg/sspl/202007/t20200710_748.html.

[41] "China Gives Its First COVID-19 Vaccine Approval to Sinopharm," Reuters, December 31, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/china-gives-its-first-covid-19-vaccine-approval-sinopharm-2020-12-31/.

[42] "How Long Can China's Zero-Covid Policy Last?" The Economist, October 16, 2021, https://www.economist.com/china/2021/10/16/how-long-can-chinas-zero-covid-policy-last.

[43] Jude Blanchette, “Beijing’s Visions of American Decline,” Politico China Watcher (newsletter), March 11, 2021, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-china-watcher/2021/03/11/beijings-visions-of-american-decline-492064;  Jonathan A. Czin and Allie Matthias, "Occidental Fall: Assessing Chinese Views of U.S. Decline," China Leadership Monitor, no. 87 (March 2026), https://www.prcleader.org/post/occidental-fall-assessing-chinese-views-of-u-s-decline.

[44] Wang Wen, “COVID-19 Blunders Signal End of ‘American Century,’” Global Times, March 30, 2020, https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1184201.shtml; Shen Yi, “2020 Election Reflects US Political Decay and Decline,” Global Times, November 3, 2020, https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1205527.shtml.

[45] “百年未有之大变局，总书记这些重要论述振聋发聩” [Major Changes Unseen in a Century: These Important Remarks by the General Secretary Are Profound and Striking], 求是网 [Qiushi Online], August 27, 2021, https://www.qstheory.cn/zhuanqu/2021-08/27/c_1127801606.htm; Zhu Feng, "Review of Recent Academic Research on 'Major Changes Unseen in a Century,'" People's Forum: Academic Frontiers, April 2019, https://www.aisixiang.com/data/120385.html.

[46] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, "The State of Democracy in the United States (2022)," March 20, 2023, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/web//wjbxw_new/202303/t20230320_11044478.shtml; Michael D. Swaine, "Chinese Views of U.S. Decline," China Leadership Monitor, no. 69 (Fall 2021), https://www.prcleader.org/post/chinese-views-of-u-s-decline.

[47] Czin and Matthias, “Occidental Fall: Assessing Chinese Views of U.S. Decline.”

[48] Christopher S. Chivvis and Senkai Hsia, "Implementing the Biden Administration's China Strategy," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 23, 2026, https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2026/03/implementing-the-biden-administrations-china-strategy; The White House, "Remarks by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Renewing American Economic Leadership," April 27, 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/04/27/remarks-by-national-security-advisor-jake-sullivan-on-renewing-american-economic-leadership/.

[49] Bai Xu [白旭] and Deng Xianlai [邓仙来], “美国务卿的’小圈子’外交不合时宜” [The U.S. Secretary of State’s ‘Clique’ Diplomacy Is Out of Step with the Times], Xinhua, February 13, 2022, https://www.news.cn/world/2022-02/13/c_1128365047.htm; Ministry of National Defense of the People’s Republic of China [中华人民共和国国防部], “国防部：美英澳 ‘三方安全伙伴关系’毫无益处、危害极大” [Ministry of National Defense: The U.S.-U.K.-Australia “Trilateral Security Partnership” Is Utterly Useless and Extremely Harmful], March 30, 2023, http://www.mod.gov.cn/gfbw/xwfyr/lxjzhzt/2023njzh/2023n3y/16213528.html.

[50] CGTN: China Reiterates 'Mutual Respect' as Foundation for Alaska Talks," Business Wire, March 19, 2021, https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210319005511/en/.

"Xie Feng: The China-U.S. Relationship Is in a Stalemate, Fundamentally Because Some Americans Portray China as an 'Imagined Enemy'," Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States of America, July 27, 2021, https://us.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/zmgxss/202107/t20210728_9014322.htm.

[51] “Commerce Implements New Export Controls on Advanced Computing and Semiconductor Manufacturing Items to the People’s Republic of China (PRC),” Bureau of Industry and Security, U.S. Department of Commerce, October 7, 2022, https://www.bis.gov/press-release/commerce-implements-new-export-controls-advanced-computing-semiconductor-manufacturing-items-peoples; Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, "Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning's Regular Press Conference on October 8, 2022," https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/web/wjdt_674879/fyrbt_674889/202210/t20221008_10779681.shtml; Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, "Wang Yi Briefs Media on the Meeting Between Chinese and US Heads of State and Takes Questions," November 15, 2022, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/web/wjbz_673089/xghd_673097/202211/t20221115_10975081.shtml.

[52] Ministry of Commerce and General Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China, "Announcement No. 23 of 2023 on Implementing Export Controls on Gallium and Germanium-Related Items," Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, July 3, 2023, https://exportcontrol.mofcom.gov.cn/article/zcfg/gnzcfg/zcfggzqd/202307/847.html.

[53] "Global Development Initiative," Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy and China's Diplomacy in the New Era, September 28, 2022, https://cn.chinadiplomacy.org.cn/2022-09/28/content_78438507.shtml; "Global Security Initiative," Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy and China's Diplomacy in the New Era, August 9, 2023, https://cn.chinadiplomacy.org.cn/2023-08/09/content_100104540.shtml; "Global Civilization Initiative," Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy and China's Diplomacy in the New Era, August 4, 2023, https://cn.chinadiplomacy.org.cn/2023-08/04/content_97741364.shtml.

[54] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, "Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China," August 3, 2022, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/wjbzwfwpt/kzx/tzgg/202208/t20220803_10733117.html

[55] “HHS Secretary Alex Azar Statement on Meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen,” American Institute in Taiwan, August 10, 2020, https://www.ait.org.tw/hhs-secretary-alex-azar-statement-on-meeting-with-president-tsai-ing-wen/; Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, "Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin's Regular Press Conference,” August 5, 2020, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/fyrbt_673021/jzhsl_673025/202008/t20200805_5419200.shtml.

[56] Nectar Gan, “Analysis: What Happened to China’s Former Leader Hu Jintao?” CNN, October 28, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/28/china/china-party-congress-hu-jintao-new-video-intl-hnk.

[57] "Xi Jinping Holds Summit with US President Joe Biden," Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, November 16, 2023, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/zyxw/202311/t20231116_11181125.shtml.

[58] "Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs Held in Beijing; Xi Jinping Delivers Important Speech," Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, December 28, 2023, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/zyxw/202312/t20231228_11214409.shtml.

[59] Bonnie Glaser and Neil Thomas, "China's Central Foreign Affairs Work Conference: Implications for PRC Foreign Policy," German Marshall Fund of the United States, February 6, 2024, https://www.gmfus.org/news/chinas-central-foreign-affairs-work-conference-implications-prc-foreign-policy.

[60] “Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion,” Federal Register 90, no. 9 (January 15, 2025): 4544–84, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/15/2025-00636/framework-for-artificial-intelligence-diffusion; Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, "Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Answers Reporter's Questions Regarding U.S. Release of Artificial Intelligence Export Control Measures," January 13, 2025, https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/syxwfb/art/2025/art_f87937da460b44eeadea2a5aadeb3b64.html.

[61] Evan S. Medeiros and Andrew Polk, “China’s New Economic Weapons.” The Washington Quarterly 48, no. 1 (2025): 99–123. doi:10.1080/0163660X.2025.2480513.

[62] Rebecca Feng, Heather Somerville, and Jon Emont, "China Comes Out Swinging as Trump Trade War Looms," The Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2024, https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-us-trump-trade-war-retaliation-70523b7c; “China Dials Up US Trade Tension With Tit-for-Tat Metals Ban,” Bloomberg News, December 3, 2024, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-03/china-bans-germanium-gallium-exports-to-us-in-tit-for-tat-move.

[63] John Feffer, "Donald Trump's China-U.S. Policy Pivot," Newsweek, August 5, 2025, https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-china-us-policy-pivot-2108399.

[64] John Feng et al., "Why China is Becoming Donald Trump's Biggest U-Turn," Newsweek, August 5, 2025, https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-china-us-policy-pivot-2108399.

[65] Ana Swanson, "Trump Has Added 145% Tariff to China, White House Clarifies," The New York Times, April 10, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/business/economy/china-tariffs-145-percent.html; Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, "Spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce Answers Reporter's Questions on China's Countermeasures Against U.S. Increase of Tariffs on China," Xinhuanet, April 11, 2025, https://www.news.cn/world/20250411/60e89637864046cd904f208de8853f69/c.html.

[66] Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China and General Administration of Customs, "Announcement on Implementing Export Controls on Certain Medium and Heavy Rare Earth Related Items," MOFCOM Announcement No. 18 of 2025, April 4, 2025, https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/zwgk/zcfb/art/2025/art_9c2108ccaf754f22a34abab2fedaa944.html.

[67] Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, “"MOFCOM Announcement No. 62 of 2025: Decision to Implement Export Controls on Rare-Earth-Related Technologies,” October 9, 2025, https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/zwgk/zcfb/art/2025/art_6cb42957741440c6984de696b70df9ae.html; Liz Lee, "China Tightens Rare Earth Export Controls, Targets Defence, Semiconductor Users," Reuters, October 9, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-tightens-rare-earth-export-controls-2025-10-09/.

[68] Demetri Sevastopulo and Michael Acton, "US Licenses Nvidia to Export Chips to China After CEO Meets Trump," Financial Times, August 8, 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/e9c52f00-9bde-4840-801e-ba66c792df9e; Demetri Sevastopulo and Kathrin Hille, "Donald Trump Blocks Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te from New York Stopover," Financial Times, July 28, 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/21575bec-5cdd-47ee-9db2-3031c4ea7ca7.

[69] Bureau of Industry and Security, "Expansion of End-User Controls to Cover Affiliates of Certain Listed Entities," Federal Register 90, no. 188 (September 30, 2025), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/09/30/2025-19001/expansion-of-end-user-controls-to-cover-affiliates-of-certain-listed-entities.

[70] Jonathan A. Czin and Allie Matthias, “Beijing Bolsters Its Position in the Indo-Pacific with Little US Pushback,” Brookings Institution, July 29, 2025, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/beijing-bolsters-its-position-in-the-indo-pacific-with-little-us-pushback/.

[71] "26 Foreign Leaders to Attend China's V-Day Commemorations on Sept. 3," Xinhua, August 28, 2025, https://english.news.cn/20250828/2b5e5acf40f7463dba6c7f42eac82462/c.html; "SCO Tianjin Summit: Xi Jinping Meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi," Xinhua, August 31, 2025, https://www.news.cn/politics/leaders/20250831/091ed553e95947de9ae3f093202dda51/c.html.

[72] Lynn Kuok, "Beijing's Next Play for the South China Sea," Foreign Affairs, July 29, 2026, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/beijings-next-play-south-china-sea.

[73] "The Central Conference on Work Related to Neighboring Countries Held in Beijing; Xi Jinping Delivers Important Speech," Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, April 9, 2025, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/xw/zyxw/202504/t20250410_11592755.html; "Xi Jinping Delivers Important Speech at the Symposium on Diplomatic Work with Neighboring Countries,” Xinhua, October 25, 2013, http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-10/25/c_117878897.htm.

[74] Budget Committee, House of Representatives, Japan, “第219回国会衆議院予算委員会議録第2号” [Minutes of the House of Representatives Budget Committee, 219th Diet, no. 2], November 7, 2025, statement of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, https://kokkai.ndl.go.jp/#/detail?minId=121905261X00220251107.

[75] "Xi Jinping Holds Summit with U.S. President Trump in Busan," Xinhua, October 30, 2025, https://www.news.cn/world/20251030/cf4d2b9e46e9443bbaef6efb305d486d/c.html.

[76] Lingling Wei, Brian Schwartz, Meridith McGraw, and Jason Douglas, "Trump, After Call With China's Xi, Told Tokyo to Lower the Volume on Taiwan," The Wall Street Journal, November 27, 2025, https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-after-call-with-chinas-xi-told-japan-to-lower-the-volume-on-taiwan-3af795d6.

[77] Jonathan A. Czin et al., "Between Washington and Beijing: How Europe Fits into US-China Strategic Competition," Brookings Institution, September 11, 2025, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/between-washington-and-beijing-how-europe-fits-into-us-china-strategic-competition/; "A Savage Squabble Between China and Europe," The Economist, July 15, 2025, https://www.economist.com/china/2025/07/15/a-savage-squabble-between-china-and-europe.

 [78]Czin et al., "Between Washington and Beijing: How Europe Fits into US-China Strategic Competition.”

[79] "Xi Jinping Meets with German Chancellor Merz," Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, February 25, 2026, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/zyxw/202602/t20260225_11863534.shtml; "Xi Jinping Holds Talks with French President Macron," Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, December 4, 2025, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/zyxw/202512/t20251204_11766487.shtml; "Xi Jinping Meets with Spanish Prime Minister Sánchez," Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, April 14, 2026, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/wjdt_674879/gjldrhd_674881/202604/t20260414_11891394.shtml.

[80] Noah Barkin, "What Xi-Trump Means for Europe," Watching China in Europe, May 15, 2026, https://nbarkin.substack.com/p/what-xi-trump-means-for-europe.

[81] 中华人民共和国国务院 [State Council of the People’s Republic of China], 中华人民共和国国民经济和社会发展第十五个五年规划纲要 [Outline of the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China], approved by the Fourth Session of the Fourteenth National People’s Congress, March 12, 2026.

[82] “China 2026: What to Watch,” Center for China Analysis, Asia Society Policy Institute, December 2025, https://asiasociety.org/policy-institute/china-2026-what-watch; "Eurasia Group Publishes 'Top Risks' Predictions for 2026: 'US Political Revolution,'" Eurasia Group, January 2026, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/eurasia-group-publishes-top-risks-predictions-for-2026-us-political-revolution-302652238.html; Guoguang Wu, "The Dictator's Dilemma toward the 21st Party Congress: Elite Reshuffling and Power Restructuring," China Leadership Monitor, no. 86 (December 2025), https://www.prcleader.org/post/the-dictator-s-dilemma-toward-the-21st-party-congress-elite-reshuffling-and-power-restructuring.

[83] "Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China," Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, August 2, 2022, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/web/ziliao_674904/1179_674909/202208/t20220802_10732287.shtml; David Rising, "China's Response to Pelosi Visit a Sign of Future Intentions," Associated Press, August 19, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-china-beijing-congress-8857910a1e44cefa70bc4dfd184ef880.

[84] Jonathan A. Czin, “Plotting the Course to Xi’s Fourth Term: Preparations, Predictions, and Possibilities,” China Leadership Monitor, no. 85 (September 2025), https://www.prcleader.org/post/plotting-the-course-to-xi-s-fourth-term-preparations-predictions-and-possibilities; Jonathan A. Czin and John Culver, "Xi the Destroyer," Foreign Affairs, February 2, 2026, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/xi-destroyer.

[85] He Qiang [何强], "专访吴心伯，谈特朗普访华” [Exclusive Interview with Wu Xinbo on Trump's Visit to China], Beijing News [新京报], May 16, 2026, https://www.bjnews.com.cn/detail/1778932185129681.html; China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations [中国现代国际关系研究院], "大变局与中美共处之道” [The Great Global Transformation and the Path to U.S.-China Coexistence], report, CICIR, May 2026, http://www.cicir.ac.cn/NEW/Reports.html?id=ff804181-acd1-43ba-9210-9d3db3c6c24a; Sun Chenghao and Li Yijie, "变革中的美国与中美关系” [A Changing America and China Relations], China-US Focus [中美聚焦], April 7, 2026, https://cn.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/20260330/44231.html; 陈一新, “全面筑牢国家安全的铜墙铁壁” [Building an Impregnable Wall of National Security], 求是网 [Qiushi Online], December 9, 2025, https://www.qstheory.cn/20251209/4b4c9391614742829ddd067eebc8cee2/c.html.

[86] Czin and Matthias, "Occidental Fall: Assessing Chinese Views of U.S. Decline.”

[87] For more, see Czin, "Plotting the Course to Xi's Fourth Term.”

[88] "Wang Yi Discusses China-US Relations and China's Policy Toward the United States," Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, December 17, 2024, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/wjdt_674879/wjbxw_674885/202412/t20241218_11496943.shtml; "U.S.-PRC Counternarcotics Working Group Progress on Illicit Synthetic Drugs including Fentanyl," Media Note, Office of the Spokesperson, U.S. Department of State, August 6, 2024, https://2021-2025.state.gov/u-s-prc-counternarcotics-working-group-progress-on-illicit-synthetic-drugs-including-fentanyl/.

[89] Czin and Matthias, "Occidental Fall: Assessing Chinese Views of U.S. Decline.”

Photo credit: Max12Max, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons