For Washington, China is a strategic competitor: the only country with both the will to reshape the world order and, increasingly, the means to do so. For Europe, the People’s Republic is a ‘partner for cooperation, an economic competitor and a systemic rival’. For NATO, it is a ‘decisive enabler’ of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Yet Beijing’s image is far more positive in the Global South, of which the PRC considers itself a part.

Zhou Bo’s essays unpack China’s own view of its role today. The PRC is operating not only in a world becoming less Western, but—more importantly—a West becoming less Western; and the key to its outlook lies in Africa, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific as much as in Europe and the White House.

Are Moscow and Beijing really so closely aligned? Where are Sino-Indian relations headed? Is China a new Cold War foe for the West? Or will economic ties inevitably bring the two powers closer together?