The Outside World in China's Strategy after the 20th CPC Congress

Abstract

Since the beginning of reforms, China's economic development strategy has been aimed at integrating into the existing international economic order and establishing close cooperation, primarily with developed countries. China was able to effectively use the emerging opportunities of economic globalization and became the second economy in the world, unwittingly challenging the international order that emerged after the collapse of bipolarity. The expansion and deepening of trade and economic ties with most countries of the world and an independent foreign policy have led to increased tension in relations between China and the United States and, at the same time, to increased support for China from developing countries. As a result of economic crises and policies to contain China, the international order based on economic ties began to collapse and be replaced by a geopolitical one. The outside world, from being the most important source of China's development, which ensured the success of modernization and paved the way for the “Chinese Dream of Great Revival,” is turning into a source of major challenges and threats. The period of China's relations with the outside world, which began with the Opium Wars, is coming to an end. In the context of growing international tension and renewed East-West confrontation, the nature of China's relations with the outside world is changing, a new historical cycle of relations and a new stage in China's development are beginning.