This book addresses one of the most pressing geopolitical inquiries of our era: how will China's ambition manifest on the global stage? To address this question, the book considers China’s long tradition of statecraft. By doing this, it provides a unique and novel insight into the “why” behind China’s actions and sparks a crucial dialogue on “how” to best navigate China’s global rise. Through a keen analytical lens, the book illuminates both the constraints and the flexibility inherent in Chinese policy-making. It underscores the geographic and historical factors that constrain China's actions, forcing its leaders into trade-offs. It also highlights the system's inherent flexibility, expanding the range of strategic options available when dealing with China. The most unique contribution consists in framing the pre-occupations of contemporary China in the context of both long-standing Chinese trends and unprecedented global changes. This book offers a nuanced and realistic guide for senior policy makers, business leaders, academic researchers, and global citizens who seek to decipher the enigma of China's ascent and channel its trajectory towards a more positive and responsible direction. “For a world seeking to deal with the ‘China Challenge’, Jean Dong’s book makes an outstanding contribution towards an informed and balanced understanding of today’s China. It is written to serve as a tool for ‘sense-making, not persuasion’. Jean seeks not to ask the reader to accept China’s political system or values, nor make predictions regarding China’s future actions, but rather, to better understand how geography and the depths of thousands of years of civilisation very materially shape much of the culture, priorities and actions of contemporary China. The results of Jean’s extraordinarily extensive research are fascinating, compelling and scholarly. This book removes ignorance and fosters respect.” (Andrew Robb, Australian Minister for Trade and Investment, 2013–2016) “There is no more crucial question in contemporary international relations than China: the imperatives of its statecraft, its motivations and goals. Too many analyses are ideologically motivated. Jean Dong is a welcome, refreshing and important exception. She offers clear, balanced and realistic insights into China’s global role amidst changes in the international environment of an unprecedented speed and scope. Her work will be invaluable to academics and practitioners alike as they struggle to understand a China that often puzzles but can never be ignored.” (Bilahari Kausikan, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore, 2010–2013) “Jean Dong has contributed to the growing literature on elite Chinese politics and economics with an ambitious and intriguing focus on placing contemporary events in the context of ancient and long-standing Chinese trends and traditions. She has succeeded in this while at the same time acknowledging the extent of the ideological shift now under way―one that she suggests may well outlast Xi Jinping―that includes elevating security as a priority. For Xi both vaunts China’s ‘rejuvenation’, incorporating all that has made the country great in past eras, while also seeking to stress as he did at the 20th National Communist Party Congress that ‘there is no end to theoretical innovation’.”(Rowan Callick, Australian Expert and Author on China; Former China Correspondent for The Australian and The Australian Financial Review) “In an era of ‘polycrisis’, the ‘China threat’ theory and the ‘China collapse’ theory are like two sides of the same coin, flipping in turn, which to a large extent not only affects public opinion, but even dominates the policy orientation of many countries. Against this background, the author adopts the analytical framework of ‘Dynamic Constraints Analysis’, which integrates long-term historical perspective, broad geographical relationship, complex policy making process and detailed data, and provides a basis for understanding contemporary China and its policy formation process. This novel perspective is important to help avoid misdirection in strategicoptions driven by the ‘politics of fear’ in addressing the China challenge. This is a timely, inspiring, rare and excellent book.” (Wang Hui, Professor of Literature and History, Tsinghua University; Author of The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought) “The use of the ideas of dynamics and constraints makes sense to a historian. I imagine international relations experts will find them useful too.” (Wang Gungwu, University Professor, National University of Singapore) “This excellent book addresses one of the critical geopolitical questions of our age. Is China’s ambition to replace the United States as the dominant power or will it be content to sit as an equal partner on the global stage, and how would the relationship evolve without catastrophic conflict? It provides great insights into the internal systems and thinking of the Chinese leade