Until the late 1950s it was allied with the Soviet Union but by 1960 they began a bitter contest for control over the local communist movement in many countries.
After Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong died in 1976, Deng Xiaoping led a massive process of industrialization and emphasized trade relations with the world, while maintaining a low key, less ideological foreign policy, widely described by the phrase Taoguang Yanghui, or "hide one's talent and bide one's time".
[3] Part of this is the String of Pearls strategy securing strategic locations in the Indian Ocean and Strait of Malacca region.
[6]: 77–78 Historically, the People's Liberation Army had greater influence in China's foreign affairs, particularly during the early years of the PRC.
[8]: 177–178 Created in 1958, it was disbanded during the Cultural Revolution and restored in 1981 as Deng Xiaoping increased the number of stakeholders involved in the development of foreign policy.
[8]: 177 It became a forum for the central leadership in charge of foreign policy to meet regularly with top bureaucrats to discuss priorities, achieve consensus, and prepare recommendations for the Politburo.
[8]: 179 In his effort to build additional institutional capacity for foreign policy coordination, Xi Jinping created the National Security Commission (NSC), which absorbed the NSLG.
[11]: 2 China traditionally operates separate tracks of government-to-government and party-to-party relations, the latter for example via the CCP's International Liaison Department.
[18][19] Since the late 1970s, China's primary foreign policy goals are safeguarding its independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and shaping an international environment favorable to its modernization and Reform and Opening Up.
[10]: 6 Political scientist Dmitry Shlapentokh argues that Xi and his top leadership are developing plans for global predominance based on rapidly growing economic power.
China's trade policy and drive for access to essential natural resources, such as gas, are articulated in terms of these ideological approaches.
Beijing balances both purely economic goals with geopolitical strategies regarding the United States, Russia and other powers.
[22] Lowell Dittmer argues that in dealing with the goal of dominance over East Asia, Beijing has to juggle its relations with the United States, which has more military and economic power in the region because of close U.S. ties with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Australia and other countries.
[27]: 30 China articulates a "zero-enemy policy" in the Gulf region, taking a balanced attitude towards both incumbent governments and opposition forces, Sunni and Shi'a, republics and monarchies, and Iran and the Arab countries.
On the other hand, China's push into the Caribbean is increasingly resented by the United States and further escalation between the two major powers is a possibility in the region.
"[8]: 97 China is generally skeptical about the efficacy of sanctions, often characterizing them as a Western instrument of oppression that escalates tensions.
[20]: 56 China's view is that international intervention, especially the use of force under Chapter IV of the UN Charter, is only legitimate with both authorization of the Security Council and the consent of the parties involved.
[10]: 336–338 These changes began in 2006, when under pressure from Western governments and the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China altered its position on the Darfur conflict.
[10]: 338 China also modified its typically non-interventionist approach during the 2011 Libyan crisis, when pressure from the African Union and the Arab League prompted China to support an arms embargo, travel ban, and asset freeze and to abstain from voting on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which established a no-fly zone.
[10]: 338 The necessity of evacuating over 35,000 Chinese citizens in a period of ten days during the crisis also shaped China's policy approach to conflict zones.
[11]: 79 As part of its view of South-South Cooperation, China often votes in the United Nations based on the position of regional groups like the African Union or the Arab League.
[20]: 82 China has a major role in fostering cooperation among the global south countries in the area of climate change and clean energy.
[13]: 35 The "Ten, Hundred, Thousand" program is China's overarching initiative for South-South cooperation in addressing climate change.
[33]: 249 Publishing in 2024, academics Xinru Ma and David C. Kang write that in its South-South relations, China does not attempt to export its ideology or leadership to other countries.
[7]: 15 According to academic Suisheng Zhao, China is motivated in part by the desire to restore itself from a self-perceived state of victimhood in international affairs.
[citation needed] Along with the ROC, in PRC's perspective, Taiwan is described a separatist, breakaway province that must be reunified, by force if necessary.
[60] On July 12, 2016, an arbitral tribunal constituted under Annex VII to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ruled that China has no legal basis to claim "historic rights" within its nine-dash line in a case brought by the Philippines.
The tribunal judged that there was no evidence that China had historically exercised exclusive control over the waters or resources within the Nine-Dash Line.