Alexander Holderness, John Schaus, Nicholas Velazquez, Audrey Aldisert, Henry H. Carroll & Emily Hardesty
INTRODUCTION
China’s economic transformation over the past 40 years has lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty and established China as one of the world’s largest economies. The rise of China as a global economic leader has enabled its rise as a military and political power. Xi Jinping’s ascent to power as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2012 marked the beginning of a new era of power dynamics.
Even before 2012, China began to undermine economic norms and international agreements—including by failing to comply with World Trade Organization (WTO) regulations it had agreed to, by stealing foreign intellectual property, and by illegally fishing throughout the world, among other actions.2 This trend expanded after 2012 and the world saw China undertake new actions such as building and militarizing artificial islands, ramping up cyber espionage, and leveraging state economic control to advance China’s economic objectives at the expense of other countries’ economic prospects.3 China has also not followed international law, including with respect to human rights in Xinjiang and its claims in the South China Sea, which are not based on legally significant geographic features nor recognizing the sovereign territorial boundaries of other South China Sea claimant states.4 This pattern leaves little doubt that China has begun to shape more forcefully the international rules-based order
Xi views this established order—with democracy, the free market, and the rule of law at its core—as not in China’s long-term interest.5 According to the 2022 U.S. National Security Strategy, “China harbors the intention and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order in favor of one that tilts the global playing field to its benefit.”