What Exactly Is China Doing?

One of the most significant and pressing features of the emerging new international order is the extraordinary rise of China, which has established itself as the world's undisputed second superpower.

Since the Third Plenary Session of the Chinese Communist Party in 1978, China has pursued a path markedly different from that of the Maoist era. Its strategy combined the political discipline of the Communist Party with economic liberalization and a sustained emphasis on technological advancement.

China benefited enormously from the era of American-led globalization. Its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) opened global markets to Chinese exports while encouraging American companies to relocate manufacturing to various Chinese provinces. At the same time, China continued to be classified as a developing country, enabling it to benefit from preferential treatment under international trade arrangements.

The result was an extraordinary transformation. Beginning in 2003, China recorded an annual trade surplus with the United States of approximately $500 billion. It accumulated enormous foreign exchange reserves and generated substantial trade surpluses not only with the United States but with much of the world.

According to the author, Beijing thereby moved from a strategy of "strategic restraint" (or strategic latency) to becoming a global power capable of competing directly with the United States. This transition was made possible by strategic decisions taken decades earlier, supported by technological innovation and an increasing reliance on domestic capabilities.

China's rise has not been confined to international trade. It has also become a major force in artificial intelligence, the efficient utilization of rare earth minerals, advanced weapons manufacturing, electric vehicles, renewable energy—including both solar and wind power—and, more recently, the early stages of space exploration.

China's emergence as a great power has naturally generated expectations that it would assume a larger role in shaping the international order. Nowhere is this expectation more evident than in the Middle East, where the region has recently experienced both the fifth Gaza war and the fourth Gulf conflict.

Yet China's role in these crises has differed little from its position during the war in Ukraine.

Beijing did not recognize Russia's annexation of Ukrainian territory, but it simultaneously argued that NATO's eastward expansion constituted one of the principal causes of the conflict—a position broadly consistent with Russia's own narrative.

Similarly, in the Middle East, China's long-standing doctrine of strategic restraint has continued to shape its diplomacy. Even after affirming, during President Donald Trump's visit to China, its support for the principle of freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, Beijing did not subsequently play a visible role in influencing Iran's behavior regarding the waterway.

What makes this particularly striking, the author argues, is that over the past several years many Arab states have increasingly viewed China as a constructive force in the region.

In 2023, approximately 36 percent of China's crude oil imports originated from the Arab Gulf states—namely Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain.

By 2024, total trade between China and the Gulf countries had reached approximately $300 billion, exceeding the Gulf's combined trade with both the European Union and the United States.

Moreover, economic ties have expanded well beyond energy, encompassing a wide range of strategic sectors of growing importance.

This raises the central question posed by the author:

What role is Beijing truly playing as the world's second superpower?

Originally published in Al-Masry Al-Youm (Egypt).