The study of modern great power politics centers around China’s rise. It has been expanding its military, economic and diplomatic power. China’s growing international influence warns of a challenge to contemporary global leadership. We analyze this challenge through current events and foreign economic policy, aiming to provide insight regarding the future.

Dimensions of Power: China’s Escalating Economic Influence and the Contemporary Global Landscape

By: Kenny Dustin

As a result of changing geopolitical circumstances, China is increasingly threatening U.S. hegemony in the global order. Facets of these changes have manifested themselves through economic initiatives, which in turn provide geopolitical influence. To contextualize the difference between China and the United States’ respective policy, I analyze their actions, as well as the power afforded to each. Furthermore, through the lens of regime type, I draw conclusions regarding how each nation was able or failed to accomplish certain initiatives, how China may continue to expand, and how the United States or other Western nations may counter this growth. 

Contemporary Chinese Economic Foreign Policy and its Implications for the Future

By: David Niebel

China’s rapid growth and entry into the world economy has expanded China’s influence, while its territorial claims and economic foreign policy indicate an increasingly assertive approach on the world stage. China has the capacity to continue its economic projects abroad, and it has sufficient room to grow for a considerable amount of time into the near future. Because of this, and because of its ambitions to counterbalance American economic influence, we can expect to see large scale economic projects by China on the world stage into the foreseeable future until China exhausts its capacity, it is effectively counterbalanced and outcompeted by the US, or it consolidates a role as the economic leader in Asian markets.