Pole Positioning

China is the world’s most prominent advocate of a new multipolar order: “An equal and orderly multipolar world means every country can find its place […] and play its due role,” announced Chinese President Xi Jinping last July.^[1] The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing to realign global governance institutions and promoting alternative structures, like BRICS, ostensibly to better reflect the “redistribution of power” towards the rising non-Western world.^[2] However, in jousting for “pole position” with the United States, Beijing often disregards the very countries it claims to uplift and the principles it touts. Thus, many see this advocacy as mere window dressing for naked power politics.^[3] Its considerable success in rallying the discontents of the current global order notwithstanding, China’s economic and military progress face homegrown obstacles. Moreover, Beijing’s power plays are drawing more and more resistance from its neighbors as well as European states; and under the new Trump administration, US efforts to hamstring China will likely intensify. If the CCP doubles down on its current course, China itself may help derail any hope of an “orderly multipolar world.”

In pushing for multipolarity, China is portraying itself as an advocate for the countries of the so-called Global South. Like many of them, China views the current order as distorted by the West’s dominance over international institutions, double standards, and supposed “Cold War mentality.”^[4] Beijing’s vision promises to “democratize international relations,”^[5] uphold the UN Charter, and give disaffected countries equal say and room to maneuver within international institutions and rules. But it also promotes the CCP’s ideas: Its “right to development” prioritizes economic progress for the many over political and civil rights for the individual; and in its understanding, sovereignty shall not be infringed over questions of values or governance.^[6] This interpretation of multipolar order tries to reconcile an appeal to the Global South with Beijing’s desire to act, without outside interference, as a great power and regional hegemon. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese public is overwhelmingly convinced of the benefits of a more multipolar world for peace and prosperity (Figure 1.4). But even in China, some acknowledge that, as it pursues great-power competition with the US, calling for multipolarity is merely “a globally politically correct stance.”^[7]

In Washington, and increasingly in other Western capitals, many see the CCP’s overriding goal as winning a strategic competition with the US and upending core elements of the liberal international order. Some still caution against raising the stakes of competition with China or overstating its global ambitions,^[9] but the consensus is hardening that greater pushback against Beijing is necessary.^[10] For many, China intensifying its opportunistic cooperation with Russia and other revisionist actors, like Iran and North Korea, has laid bare that the CCP’s purported principles fall by the wayside when it serves its strategic interests. China has become an indispensable supporter of Russia’s war in Ukraine: Since 2022, it has not only helped Russia withstand Western sanctions by sending dual-use goods worth nine billion US dollars and boosted trade – to the point that 38 percent of Russia’s goods imports are now Chinese.^[11] It is also allegedly helping Russia build combat drones.^[12] The continuing war gives Beijing a pretense to malign NATO and is straining its transatlantic competitors’ military, economic, and political resources.^[13]

Meanwhile, Beijing is using its diplomatic clout to rally discontents of the current global order to its cause. China is trying to position the BRICS grouping, whose newly expanded membership now accounts for nearly half the world’s population and more than a third of global GDP, as a counterweight to the G7.^[14] Though BRICS is often still seen as a disorganized group with few concrete joint projects, it is a powerful vehicle for the CCP to denounce Western double standards and failures of global governance.^[15] But while President Xi announced China would “lead the reform of the global governance system,”^[16] it has, for instance, blocked serious paths to UN Security Council reform.^[17] It aims to dilute international institutions’ liberal DNA by inserting CCP principles into their documents and placing Chinese officials in leadership positions.^[18] Moreover, China is increasing its military and economic power, obstacles and conflicts notwithstanding, and putting it to use towards strategic competition – often in contravention of its purported multipolar principles.
 

China’s economy is its leaders’ greatest asset on the world stage, but perhaps also their greatest concern. China is projected to account for 21 percent of global economic growth in the coming five years.^[34] The backbone of this success are future-oriented industries. China is ranked the world leader in as many as 37 of 44 critical technologies.^[35] The world also depends on it for rare earth elements used in key high-tech products, with China mining 60 percent and processing nearly 90 percent of global supply.^[36] Chinese companies have left the competition in photovoltaics far behind and may do so in electric vehicles (EVs) as well.^[37]

While advancing its narrative of a supposedly emerging multipolar world, China is amassing significant capabilities to challenge the US as the dominant world superpower. Yet it increasingly faces internal structural headwinds and pushback from abroad. The strongest pushback comes from Washington, where the consensus is to more resolutely oppose China (Chapter 2). Beijing, in turn, is projecting confidence that it can withstand a “Trump shock.”^[54] Moreover, Trump’s distancing from alliances and international institutions could even hand China opportunities. The CCP could underscore its narrative of the US as a destabilizing force in the world and would face less resistance to embedding its own initiatives into the international system.^[55] And although Beijing faces pushback from Europe and the “non-American West” too, it may also have chances to exploit new divisions between the US and its partners.^[56] However, if Beijing responds to increased international opposition by doubling down on coercion and rule-breaking, it may jeopardize its standing with like-minded countries while further undermining the chances of an “orderly multipolar world.”