A new scholarly article by HCSS Senior Fellow Friso M. S. Stevens was published (open access) in the Journal of Contemporary China. The piece, “A Revanchist Chinese Foreign Policy, with Xi Jinping’s Politics in Command”, offers one of the clearest and most comprehensive explanations to date of how Xi Jinping’s ideology shapes China’s regional ambitions—and what this means for the future of East Asia.
Drawing on Steve Tsang’s influential concept of ‘Party-state Realism’, Stevens argues that understanding contemporary Chinese foreign policy requires starting from Xi’s central premise: the Party—Xi—leads everything. From this perspective, China’s growing assertiveness is not an ad hoc reaction to external pressures but the outcome of an internally coherent vision for restoring regional primacy by 2049.
The article outlines Xi’s two-pronged strategy:
- A conventional military approach focused on balancing against the US, accelerating war preparation, and expanding China’s ability to deter or coerce regional actors.
- An indirect approach rooted in Marxist-Leninist tools—psychological and public opinion warfare, United Front operations, and lawfare—designed to erode the resolve of weaker states without resorting to high-intensity conflict.
Stevens also examines the economic, diplomatic, and institutional practices through which China seeks to shepherd East Asia back toward Sino-centrality, framing its own system of governance as a legitimate and even superior alternative to Western liberalism.
The article concludes that although China casts itself as a benign and stabilizing power under slogans such as “Asia for Asians”, its long-term objective is clear: reshaping the regional order in ways that weaken US influence and expand China’s sphere of influence. As long as the United States remains present in the region, this will generate continued friction—conventional, economic, psychological, and political.
This publication provides crucial insight into how Xi Jinping’s ideology translates into long-term strategic behaviour.
Read the full article in the Journal of Contemporary China.
This article is a rewritten, adapted, and expanded part of the PhD dissertation that the author defended at Leiden University on 28 March 2023.
Experts
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