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This book offers a systematic study of China's great-power diplomacy under President Xi Jinping. It critically applies the Chinese concept of 'strategic opportunity', which is defined by the national ambitions as set by the ruling communist party leadership, the opportunities and risks presented in the international environment, and the policy instruments at the nation's disposal. Applying the dynamic concept, the book identifies key Chinese beliefs that seek to best match its resources with its policy ends and investigates policy patterns in China's management of competition with the United States, the Belt and Road Initiative, economic statecraft, regional and global institutional orders, and its multipolar diplomacy. Taking seriously China's choice, Yong Deng challenges the mainstream structural analysis in International Relations that focuses merely on rising powers' insecurity and discontent in the international system. His study shows how the world's leading contender to, and major stakeholder in, the world order actually evaluates, and actively seeks to control, its international environment.

Despite persistent skepticism towards the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), many countries have signed on to the program and even more countries have come to believe in its transformative potential to development finance and the global order. How has the illiberal Chinese government succeeded in convincing the world, particularly the Global South, about its commitment and BRI's future success? Exploring the credibility puzzle, this article argues that the Xi Jinping administration has relied on an all-in strategy tying the BRI to China's national development and foreign policy, promoting the BRI through select international institutions, and launching a series of flagship mega-projects. With mounting sustainability challenges on both economic and geopolitical fronts, however, the BRI now has to scale back its ambitions while China reevaluates its strategic opportunity. (J Contemp China/GIGA)