ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses China's position in the global order with particular reference to the current reshaping of the major geometries of power at the international level. Within a fast-changing, depolarized, international order, China's global power has indeed increased. Before trying to understand Chinese perspectives on global order, it remains crucial to illustrate how China perceives its own place in the world, evaluating at the same time some of the dominant overarching guidelines leading the discourse about its international behaviour. According to Yan Xuetong, one of China's leading international relations thinkers, the low-profile strategy worked in China's favour for more than two decades. More recently, however, influential public intellectuals, such as Zhao Tingyang, have been prepared to advocate the need for an alternative vision of world order that has salience beyond China's own borders. The establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) shows that China does have the ability to lead and get support from even developed Western powers on some issue areas.
