How has the behaviour of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in world politics changed? Has it become a new kind of empire? What imperial strategies is it employing, and what effect are they having?
This research project starts from the idea that China changed its international strategy in 2013, when Xi Jinping came to power. Before that, China followed a policy of “keeping a low profile” in global politics. After 2013, Chinese leaders and business elites began moving beyond simply joining the Western-led global order (especially the one shaped by the United States) and started learning how to build global hierarchies centered on China.
To understand and analyse this essential change, our project employs an updated imperial framework. These new strategies, patterns of behaviour and associated objectives can be seen in several ways.
- efforts to build China-led systems in high-tech industries and in financial, digital, scientific, and space infrastructure
- stronger and more aggressive actions toward Taiwan
- unequal partnerships with countries and companies, especially in the Global South
- ideas such as the “community of common destiny of mankind,” meant to align other countries with China’s worldview
In short, we study how China’s government has shifted from trying to fit into the world selectively to trying to make the world fit China’s hierarchical needs. The aim is to create autonomy for the imperial core and new China-centred peripheries around the world.
The Research Unit (FOR 5913/1), led by Tobias ten Brink of Constructor University, Bremen, is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
Learning Empire 