For decades, China’s foreign policy has been shaped and guided by Deng Xiaoping’s — the late Chinese paramount leader, who oversaw the opening up of the country to forces of globalization — famous dictum: “Hide your strength, bide your time.”
Recognizing the imperative of national development, after decades of disastrous policies under the megalomaniac Mao Zedong, Deng aptly saw the necessity for a low-profile, amicable and calculating foreign policy, which provides the conditions for stable and peaceful rise of China. It was precisely this ingeniously pragmatic doctrine, which undergirded China’s remarkable economic transformation in the last three decades. Ironically, (nominally) communist China has emerged as history’s most successful capitalist story.
In the past decade, as China became “moderately prosperous,” it gradually discarded Deng’s counsel in favor of a new brand of assertiveness, anchored by growing international economic influence and regional territorial expansionism. China’s economic rise has certainly been a positive source of trade and investments for many developing countries around the world, particularly in Africa and Latin America. Its maritime assertiveness in adjacent waters, however, has partially belied China’s claim of “peaceful rise” and preference for “win-win relations” with the world. China’s rapid ascent has transformed it into both a centripetal force of integration as well as a centrifugal force of fragmentation.
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