How China is seeking to transform the meaning of great power
By promoting a more just world order, Beijing hopes to exercise influence without making domination the organising principle of international relations
As China has emerged as a peer competitor to the United States in many areas, an increasingly familiar question is whether it has become a superpower. The question, however, may rest on a definition of power that belongs to another era.
It reflects a different conception of what power is for, and perhaps what constitutes responsible power in the 21st century.
The term “superpower” dates from the second world war. In his 1944 book The Super-Powers: The United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union – Their Responsibility for Peace, American political scientist William T.R. Fox identified the three as a new category of states whose military and geopolitical capabilities gave them an exceptional role in shaping the post-war order.