Why China’s Attitude Toward the Global Order Matters More Than Its Power
- Suloja Khadka
- Dec 9
- 4 min read
China’s reemergence as a global power dominates debates about the future of the international order. As China rises, power alone does not dictate how a rising state interacts with the global system.What matters more for the United States and its allies is China’s attitude toward the rules, norms, and institutions that structure international order. Whether Beijing chooses to reform, reshape, or reorder will shape international politics far more profoundly than its military, economic, and technological capabilities.The big puzzle for century 21st is not if China is powerful, but what kind of power it will wield.
Organski’s Power Transition model reminds us that the real fault line is not relative power itself, but whether it accepts the existing hierarchy or pushes back as a dissatisfied challenger. A rising power is a threat when it is not allied with the dominant power and had no part creating the existing World order.By this definition, China fits the profile of a dissatisfied rising power. It is not a U.S. ally, was absent during the formation of the post-WWII order, and has historically criticized its foundations.
However, structural and strategic realities limit China’s willingness to act as a conventional revisionist power.Its geography, bordered by multiple nuclear-armed neighbors including India and Russia, impede aggressive expansion.Attempts to reshape Asia coercively could chagrin counterbalancing coalition, accelerating containment rather than preventing. Instead of dismantling the system, Beijing has deepened its engagement.
Since the end of the Cold War, Chinese foreign policy has followed the principle of Tao Guang Yang Hui (hide capabilities, bide time).The doctrine has unwind, prioritizing domestic resilience and present China’s rise as non-threatening.Under Xi Jinping, China is advancing national rejuvenation and Chinese path to modernization.
Recent years show that China behaves less like a traditional revisionist power.Even as United States retreats from or undermined several agreements including Trans-Pacific Partnership, Paris Accord, Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and WHO.China’s introduction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), is viewed as complementary to the existing arrangements.China, therefore, sees itself as the “calm and responsible major power.”
Western discourse often anticipates inevitable confrontation.Realist scholar John Mearsheimer argue that Washington must unequivocally devote its strategic focus to slowing China’s rise.Analyst like David Lai classify China as a natural challenger.It is a second-ranked power with immense potential and meets the material requirements to contend for global primacy.
The rise of China is compelling the United States to rethink its century-long hegemonic role. Historically, Britain gradually ceded primacy to the United States without contestation because it accepted the emerging hierarchy. The US-Soviet relationships prior 1989 was defined by by mutual suspicion, and the Soviet Union never became a successful global contender due to its economic threshold.
As the stakes of great-power competition escalate, Chinese officials foreground a ‘new type of great-power relations’.U.S. policy has largely relied on trade restrictions, technology sanctions, and enhanced military deployment in the Indo-Pacific.As the global hegemon, it reoriented its foreign policy between 2010 and 2011 through the “Pivot to Asia” strategy, signalling a fundamental reorientation of American diplomacy toward the Indo-Pacific region.U.S. trade restrictions and technology sanctions can be cited as examples of punitive measures.Trade and technology measures instantiate how the dominant power can initiate confrontation thus rejecting the traditional expectation that the rising power begins systemic struggle.
Beijing constructs a narrative on striving for achievement rather than a disruptive zero-sum power.It legitimizes its rise and positions as a constructive leader committed to working within the system.From washington vantage, this framing can appear as subtle resistance. The key challenge lies in aligning perception and policy: misunderstandings of intention could intensify conflict unnecessarily.
Power Transition analysis sharply narrows the pool of true contender for global leadership to a single state, China, filtering out other rising nations such as Brazil, Russia, and India, with India being particularly constrained by deep ethnic and religious cleavages keeping it a weaker actor in world politics.
Washington sees deterrence and containment as necessary stabilizers; Beijing sees them as proof of resistance to legitimate change. Each side’s self-image validates the other’s fears.Achieving rejuvenation means fundamentally modernizing the country, with Xi Jinping setting benchmarks to modernize by 2035 and fulfill the national rejuvenation by 2050.
Decades of bilateral interaction have progressively shaped the strategic perceptions of both Washington and Beijing.The 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy designated China as a “strategic competitor,” which Beijing countered as a vestige of Cold War mentality and zero-sum.By 2025, cautious talks resumed at the Busan summit, forestalled a further escalation of bilateral frictions.At APEC 2025, Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump engaged in high-stakes diplomacy securing an extended period of stability.Negotiations culminated in temporary easing of trade frictions, with the Chinese side appearing relatively advantageous.
In the post–Cold War strategic milieu, U.S. policy was oriented toward curtailing China’s structural challenge to American hegemony, both regionally and globally.China views Taiwan as a core interest (hexin liyi) and a non-negotiable red line. China has pursued a strategy aimed at upticking Washington’s posture on Taiwan over time.The Taiwan question is simply another bargaining chip within great-power rivalry.Trade disputes, technological decoupling, and tariff regimes are negotiable, Taiwan is not.Beijing interprets Washington’s arms sales and political engagement with Taipei as an attempt to constrain the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).From the American perspective, the timing of any potential reunification remains unpredictable.President Donald Trump, for instance, reportedly advised Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi not to provoke Beijing on the issue of Taiwan’s sovereignty.
Narratives of the Asian Century reasserts the governance models rooted in historical memory and identity.In China, the CPC has decisively defied these core Western assumptions.Recently, Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar outrightly decoded that the current geopolitical order is both fragmented and less rule-governed, with strategic debates focused on semiconductors, rare earths, and connectivity infrastructure.Some analysts anticipated that the CPC might lose its domestic grip, yet overlook the resilience of China’s nomenklatura system.Western scholars remain puzzled, unable to explain the CPC’s success story within their existing frameworks.
This article, written by Suloja Khadka, a PhD candidate at Fudan University focusing on Nepal–China relations, China’s political development, and Nepal’s foreign policy.
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