When The Dragon Roared- How China Dictates The 21st-Century Geopolitics

‘The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without even fighting’- Sun Tzu, The Art of War. 

The Asian dragon and its growing relevance in global affairs have persistently dictated the geopolitical sphere and shaped global policies. From dominating global supply chains to an established hegemony in rare earth resources, China is no longer just an active player in a rapidly evolving global order, emerging at the helm of affairs.

Illustration by The Geostrata

As the geopolitical pendulum moves yet again, the world is no longer looking at just leadership change, but a sharp deviation from the set structure that shapes world affairs today.

This marks a critical juncture in world history, shifting the reins from the established superpower, the United States, and building the groundwork for a rapidly evolving multipolar world order. 

LAYING THE FOUNDATION

The 2010-2020 decade was a pivotal moment in China’s history, shaping the trajectory for the future and establishing China's relevance beyond asserting regional dominance in Asia.

The Chinese Communist Party, with its expansionist policies, envisioned ‘China’s great national rejuvenation’, to fulfil its ultimate goal of proving the national legitimacy of the CPC.

The domestic success of China’s political parties inevitably depends on their international stature and economic breakthrough, thus bringing a renewed focus on shaping China’s global image and emerging as an alternative to the United States. 

It also marked a historic milestone for China as it surpassed the United States to become the world’s leading manufacturer, further building China to become the world’s manufacturing superpower. The decade marked a page-turning moment for China, from which the nation’s growth has only accelerated. 

THE EARLY BLUEPRINT

In the game of geopolitics, China’s strategic move with the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative was more than just the enforcement of Chinese economic centrality in regional affairs, but rather a part of a larger gameplay. 

With the launch of the Belt and Road initiatives, China eyed the establishment of a financial order outside of the Bretton-Woods System, challenging the West-dominated organisations, and reinforcing China’s growing economic dominance in global affairs.

The Chinese adopted an enhanced strategy that further steered the nation’s expansionist dreams through the conversion of capital into political leverage and forcing reluctant nations, critical of China, and using their abject economic limitation to their advantage, to begrudgingly toe the same line as Beijing.

In its very first ten years, the BRI succeeded in bringing China’s investment numbers all across the globe to 1 trillion dollars, building China’s economic and geopolitical leverage, and actively challenging the US Dollar hegemony. 

By 2017, Beijing was no longer bound to investments in just ports and infrastructure and now included health roads and digital silk roads, pushing nations with abject economic limitations into a growing dependence on China.

One of the most prevalent examples of China’s geopolitical gameplay is Sri Lanka and the infamous Hambantota Port, given on a 99-year lease to China Merchants Port in 2017, under high interest rates, further pushing Sri Lanka into a financial debt crisis.

The 1.2 billion dollars worth expansive infrastructure endeavour, steered by Sri Lanka, under the BRI funding, inevitably led to Sri Lanka becoming yet another unfortunate victim of Chinese debt diplomacy.

The port, in its initial phase, was a bone of contention and received massive criticism over loans being funded towards unproductive infrastructure and initial reports suggesting against the construction of the port.

China’s ambitious expansionist policy reaped its benefits when it gained control over the Hambantota Port under the lease signed in 2017, which emerged as a strategic advantage, connecting China with Southeast Asia, East Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

Meanwhile, between 2006 and 2019, Sri Lanka was neck-deep in debt, accounting for a cumulative 12.1 billion dollars in investment from China, with an exorbitant 9% foreign debt in 2018.

Beyond its economic dominance, China’s diplomatic shift towards hard power and a more aggressive approach towards the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait further established the nation’s growing geopolitical positioning. 

In 2016, China rejected the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling over the nine-dash line and its continued movement to prove its legitimacy over the South China Sea, with heightened military activity and posturing against Taiwan, completely disregarding the nation’s sovereignty, actively reshaping the security architecture of the Indo-Pacific.

China’s aggressive stance against ‘one country, two systems’ in Hong Kong, and its tightened control over Hong Kong, reflects the high-handed approach of the Chinese Communist Party and their disregard for a nation’s sovereignty and constitutional rights, to suit their policies. 

These developments did not just shape China’s position for a decade, but rather are marked as historic steps that broke the unipolarity and established a bipolar global order, with an Asian power emerging as a growing threat to the age-old United States’ hegemony. 

THE GEOPOLITICAL GAMEPLAY NOW

As the geopolitical tectonic plates continue to shift, they have transitioned Modern-day China from being just a member to an active role player in determining the global order. 

Amidst heightened tensions and tariff wars, with growing disgruntlement amongst nations over Trump’s approach and global supply chain tensions, the focus shifts towards China, as nations reevaluate their dependence on the United States.

China’s extensive policies, such as the BRI, created to best meet China’s needs, force countries with limited alternatives into shifting their alliance towards them.

Some, however, have criticised the ‘debt trap diplomacy’ and aggressive diplomatic posturing, reflecting the apprehensions amongst nations over China’s growing power.

China has understood the broader geopolitical order and, rather than confining itself to Western norms and institutions, aspires to shift the increased attention from the West by establishing a competitive institutional structure, challenging Western hegemony. 

China’s geopolitical ascent challenges the existing international structure and the dominance of the US Dollar, with the rising popularity of the Yuan.

China’s traditional approach towards an extensive defence arsenal to further its expansionist ambition, with increased naval presence in the South China Sea, signals the establishment of a security architecture that competes against the traditional power centres and recalibrates its approach towards the neighbouring states.

Through hard power signalling and an ideological amplification of a pro-China perspective across the globe, China envisions a civilisational restructuring with itself at the helm of affairs.  

GROWING TECHNOLOGICAL SUPERPOWER

China’s ambitious pursuit of growing expansionism and technological advancement stands at the crossroads of growing geopolitical influence, envisioning the future trajectory of the nation.

The launch of state-driven policies such as Made in China 2025 and the AI Development Plan in 2017 reflects a long-term strategy of self-reliance and emerging as a global tech giant.

China today, in the field of Artificial Intelligence, has cast its imprint, dominating the top 20 slots globally for generative AI patenting, aiming to become a world leader in semiconductors, robotics by 2030.

With the expanding influence of Artificial Intelligence, the continued presence in the particular field puts China at a crucial vantage point to actively dictate and shape global reforms and policies. 

With the launch of the Digital Silk Road in 2017, China further embarks on the journey of establishing dominance in areas including subsea cables, 5G spectrum distribution, high-tech surveillance equipment, and smart city framework.

Chinese tech giants such as Huawei, at the helm of affairs, are establishing 5G networks not just nationally but expanding their reach to nations such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, South Africa, Mozambique, and the UAE, acting as strategic leverage for Beijing to influence data flows.

This enables China to exert economic coercion and digital warfare, opening doors to the possibility of compromising on the nation’s data in times of heightened tensions. China’s heightened presence in the rare-earth ecosystem, with nearly 40% of rare earth production, puts Beijing in a position to dictate the global supply chains.

Critical minerals, including lithium, cobalt, and nickel, have surged in demand to meet the rising production of batteries, EVs and AI chips.

With essentially no ready alternative to rare earth materials, China has shifted in its stature from being a mere member of global politics to now shaping the new world order.

EXERTING THE HARD POWER

China’s expansionist military policy and growing technological advancement go hand in hand, building the backbone of the country’s growing geopolitical relevance.

Xi Jinping’s ambitious approach towards the expansion of the military and building a world-class military by 2049, a force capable of protecting both land and maritime routes, has steered the country towards exerting a traditional hard power approach coupled with modernised technology and growing advancements in the field of artificial intelligence.

Informatising the warfare techniques, China adopts an Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) approach, a strategic manoeuvring to counter the United States' presence across China’s immediate neighbourhood, while enabling China to exert force beyond the first island chains.  

The growing naval presence and heightened military activity in the South and East China Sea, with deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems, are part of the broader strategy to stake claim over the Taiwan Strait and for Beijing, to secure access to the Western Pacific Theatre of Operations, while ensuring control over key trade routes, thus challenging the US dominance.

The collective fusion of the military might and the tech giants, alongside economic hegemony and soft power exertion, has enabled China to mark its presence and symbolise the geopolitical plates shifting from the West to the East. 

AN EMERGING SOFT POWER

China’s economic rise remains the central pillar steering the country’s accelerated growth and its ascent in global affairs. With policies centred around Belt and Road Initiatives and the Yuan emerging as a competitor against the US dollar, in an ambitious approach to increasing bipolarity.

China seeks to establish bipolarity in the world, one led by the USA, and the other led by itself.

Through the establishment of Confucius institutes, cultural exchanges and increased promotion of the Mandarin language, China traces back its historic legacy and reinforces its rich cultural roots.

China uses its massive market and labour force as additional tools of attraction, and invites MNCs, indirectly urging them to align with China’s political and economic interests.

China’s accelerated growth in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Fakes provides the state with an information arsenal, which amplifies its ideas across the world and shapes public opinions abroad.

These elements together create a soft-power strategy for China to exert not just geopolitical but also ideological dominance, exerting its influence without coercion.

CONCLUSION

Beijing had for decades been undermined and viewed as a growing regional power in Asia; however, post 2008, as the geopolitical plates underwent a tectonic shift, the Asian dragon resourced and the resurgence of a civilisational power dawned on the world as the globe transitioned into multipolarity.

While China’s expansionism and growing exertion of power trample on the sovereignty of neighbouring nations, including Taiwan and member nations of the BRI, pose a grave threat to the established international order, while reshaping the 21st-century geopolitics, compelling the globe to rethink, regroup and set the agenda for a new era of evolving power dynamics.

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BY ANANYA SHARMA

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