China's Global Ambitions: A Reality Check

Perhaps no other topic agitates the contemporary strategic imagination more than the implications of China's rise — not just for the future of the ruling elite in Beijing but also for Asia including India, North America, Africa, Europe, Latin America. In the recent past, apprehension about Chinese President Xi Jinping's ambitions has given way to another sentiment, that China may be inching toward overreach—both economic as well as geopolitical—as public opinion across many Western democracies and even non-Western democracies snowball into China skepticism, if not antagonism. Discomfort on China is on rise even in some authoritarian states.