Synopsis of Stimson Center Book Launches for Xi Jinping’s Quest for a Sinocentric Asia, 2013-2024

Over a span of two weeks, the Stimson Center hosted two book launches for the co-authored volume, Xi Jinping’s Quest for a Sinocentric Asia, 2013-2024. Compiled from articles posted on The Asan Forum, apart from the book’s introductory chapter, the April 2025 publication made the case for intensification of Sinocentrism in Chinese foreign policy. The webinars elucidated the meaning of Sinocentrism and focused on its impact in two, distinct directions. The two guest speakers drew on the book and their wider knowledge as specialists on how China’s leadership views its neighbors. In one case, a leading expert on Sino-Russian relations put a subject raised in the book in perspective. In the other, a leading specialist on Chinese relations with Southeast Asia offered a wider outlook.

The launch on April 23 for the volume Xi Jinping’s Quest for a Sinocentric Asia, 2013-2024 centered on Sinocentrism and the US-China-Russia Grand Strategic Triangle. Two authors, Yun Sun and Gilbert Rozman, were joined by Sergey Radchenko at the Stimpson Center. Along with briefly summarizing the book, the event highlighted the themes of Sinocentrism and the Grand Strategic Triangle, examining linkages between the two. The introductory chapter of the book focused on its Sinocentric findings, while the three chapters on Northeast Asia related to this triangularity. The presentations and Q&A ranged well beyond the book in exploring Sino-Russian relations and the United States.

Sinocentrism

What is Sinocentrism? It is often traced to imperial China’s tianxia (all under heaven), but that only loosely applies to our era. It is not explained by official Chinese sources, which pretend it does not exist. Familiarity with the Monroe Doctrine leads us to seek false equivalents, failing to grasp the economic and cultural webs that China is weaving. As the popular Chinese saying advises, our best approach is to “seek truth from facts.” To grasp the actual meaning of Sinocentrism of late, we need to examine how it has been applied over time to China’s relationships with neighboring countries. The new book does that over the first twelve years of Xi Jinping’s leadership, revealing the increasingly brazen manifestation of this worldview in China’s strategic thinking about Asian foreign relations.

The co-authored book traces the intensification of Sinocentrism in four directions and across three distinct time frames. Three chapters by Yun Sun follow Chinese strategic thinking toward the US role in Asia, recognizing that for Beijing to reshape its neighborhood to its liking the US presence must be curtailed. Resolve to do so hardened from 2013-16 to 2017-20 and to 2021-24, each marking a new phase in Sinocentrism. The same three time periods are examined in the chapters Gilbert Rozman authored, covering the three parts of Northeast Asia: Russia, Japan, and the Korean Peninsula. As Sino-Russian relations tightened, China kept pressuring Japan while often shifting its stance on the peninsula to the disadvantage of South Korea. Through the third set of three, chronological chapters, Danielle Cohen traces shifts in strategic thinking toward India, Southeast Asia, and Australia. A final chapter by Gaye Christofferson surveys the application of Sinocentrism to Central Asia over the entire time span. Putting all of this in perspective is an introduction explaining how Sinocentrism operates as a fundamental feature of national identity.

The book demonstrates that Sinocentrism is an overarching framework, applied flexibly to different countries, evolving as China’s power expands. Its essence is hierarchical, dismissing sovereignty on matters territorial or cultural, if the “interests” of China are involved. Making countries economically vulnerable provides critical leverage to insist on more. Different from “America First,” Sinocentrism relies on integrated supply chains, albeit with China at the top, and takes a long-term approach toward transforming the existing order. It calibrates responses to other states, often deferential to Russia as an essential partner, while capable of “wolf warrior” hysterics toward defiant states such as South Korea and Australia. The degree of pressure applied depends on the extent of “respect” shown toward “core interests,” including censorship of criticism of China’s politics, human rights, and foreign policy. In the history of the PRC, Sinocentrism took center stage in responses to the Soviet Union in the late 1950s, Japan in the mid-1990s, the US when Obama pursued his “pivot to Asia,” and South Korea in the mid-2010s. Chinawas repulsing challenges to its long-term agenda, increasingly intent on realizing a “destiny” as the civilization towering over Asia.

Under Xi Jinping the book detects three stages of increasingly assertive Sinocentrism. In 2013-2016—the take-off stage—took the form of: Xi’s appeal to Obama for spheres of influence, Xi’s pressure on Putin through the Silk Road Economic Belt, Xi’s demonization of Japan over the Senkaku dispute and for “remilitarization,” and Xi’s flaunting of the arbitration ruling on the South China Sea. Xi’s “China Dream” feigned multilateralism, focusing on bilateralism.

In 2017-2020, the book describes Sinocentrism taking flight, accelerating beyond anything seen previously. Although the failure of Trump to value US alliances gave Xi an opening, his diplomacy was superseded by China’s aggressive moves: siding with North Korea after the failure of Trump’s Hanoi Summit, launching a border skirmish with India, taking relations with Putin to a new level while keeping up pressure on Russia as on the Northern Sea Route, and militarizing the South China Sea. Xi’s opposition to Abe’s minilateral initiatives in the Indo-Pacific region symbolized his Sinocentric aspirations. The Korean Peninsula tested China’s tolerance for defiance of Sinocentric aspirations.

Hostility to Biden’s Indo-Pacific framework agenda and support for Putin’s war in Ukraine distinguished the period 2021-2024, when Sinocentrism took full flight. Biden’s efforts to find a balanced approach to “de-risking” with emphasis on economic security were labeled “containment,” threatening Sinocentrism, but not actually China’s security. In this period, we see unmitigated antipathy toward US foreign policy, cozying up to Russia mixed with new pressure to alter the balance of relations in China’s favor; hostility to South Korean leaders for defying “balanced” relations between China and the US; and signs of readiness for coercion against Taiwan. If some Chinese regretted overreacting to Obama when Biden was worse and, by early 2025, overreacting to Biden when Trump 2.0 promised to be much worse, restraint proved difficult when the logic of Sinocentrism left little margin for interference in China’s arena. Yet, Chinese cooled “wolf warrior” rhetoric when it perceived an opening to use economic blandishments.

Through scrutiny of Chinese publications on the US role in Asia and China’s relations with its neighbors, the 2025 book found that Sinocentrism is a wholistic, hierarchical regional order not just led by Beijing but shaped by China’s leaders to give China maximum economic leverage and to eliminate any chance of a “color revolution,” interpreted to mean a shift toward the US-led international order and associated values. It presupposes a dominant civilization insistent on subservience from the states within its sphere. Nonetheless, China’s thinking is couched in the language of economic globalization and is tempered by a long-term perspective on the process of transformation. To counter Sinocentrism a similarly “long game” cognizant of diverse national interests, is needed, not rushed “de-coupling.”

Why is Sinocentrism the dominant, if unacknowledged, paradigm in China? Despite much talk of a distinct Chinese school of international relations, no theory has emerged. So many topics are off-limits or distorted due to censorship that inconsistencies are left unexplored. Without acknowledging the fact, Chinese are left only with a framework of China as a hegemon, the only center of foreign relations across much of Asia. This is a return to an historical system without recognition of the new elements added in modern times. Great power aspirations emerge as Sinocentrism.

Grand Strategic Triangle

There are many angles from which to explore the US-Sino-Russian triangle. Recently, Trump has sucked the oxygen out of the atmosphere for reflecting on other world leaders, as if the US angle alone is worth considering. Given the priority Trump has given to Putin and the possible impact of a deal on the Russia-Ukraine war, the Russian angle has drawn some attention too. Often neglected is the Chinese angle despite the fact China has been driving change in Asia, which matters most for the dynamics of the Grand Strategic Triangle. Thus, we need to focus on Sinocentrism.

The Grand Strategic Triangle is back. It enjoyed a two-decade run in international relations circles between the time in 1971 when a Sino-US breakthrough was on the horizon and the time in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, with security in the forefront, relations among Washington, Moscow, and Beijing took center stage in global affairs. In the aftermath of Russia’s Ukraine invasion and with an eye to possible Chinese coercion over Taiwan, security once again matters most. Sino-Russian strategic cooperation and the US response have revived interest in this framework.

Vladimir Putin has sought revived activation of this since the 2000s, Xi Jinping has given credence to it from the late 2010s, and now Donald Trump is giving a big boost to it in 2025. An urgent question that has resurfaced is who will bring change to this triangle. Will it be Trump driving a wedge between Russia and China? Will it be Putin as part of the end game of his war in Ukraine? Or will it be Xi, pursuing Sinocentrism in a deal with Trump or at the expense of Putin’s agenda? Attention to the Grand Strategic Triangle is less about its current configuration than about prospects of change. There is talk of a “reverse Nixon,” Trump pulling off a split of Russia from its recent, close ties with China.

Putin is most determined to construct a Grand Strategic Triangle as close as possible to an equilateral framework. His ideal is a Yalta-2 summit, at which he, Xi, and Trump would recognize separate spheres of influence. In dealing with two rather complicating factors, Putin would be wary of a united Europe as a separate center and inclined to embrace India as the fourth leading power. In his reasoning, Europe must be divided and not reinforce the US side of the triangle, while India serves as a brake on Sinocentrism. Succeeding in bringing India into the SCO and boosting BRICS along with China as the core, Putin relies on India to keep China at bay in Asia and in the “Global South.” Yet, he also affirms the Sino-Russian nexus as the decisive force for achieving his aims and Russia’s revival as a global power. In no way is Putin looking toward a harmonious troika, instead expecting give-and-take in a fractious global leadership. This approach does not split with China but gives Russia more maneuvering room through US relations.

Trump appears inclined to accept the Grand Strategic Triangle as the dominant international grouping. This thinking represents an abrupt shift in US foreign policy for reasons few experts in the West understand. This may be driven by his antipathy for the establishment in the West and its values, preferring to make common cause with autocrats. Another factor may be his penchant for personally cutting eye-popping deals, which Putin and Xi could deliver on a scale others could not match. Whereas he appears inclined to grant Putin his sphere of influence—conveniently thumbing his nose at elites in Europe—there is uncertainty over how far Trump would go in recognizing Sinocentrism. If Beijing were to gain control over Taiwan and then pursue control over the Korean Peninsula and Southeast Asia, Trump would likely grasp that the US sphere of influence is unduly narrowed. Thus, Sinocentrism poses a serious problem for winning his support for the Grand Strategic Triangle as envisioned by Putin. It also poses a problem for Putin’s ambitions since China shows scant interest in his Yalta-2 hopes, regarding Russia as more a member of its own camp than as a party capable of three-way leadership in international affairs. Even so, Russia’s hostility to the US and reliance on China to pursue this struggle have served China’s interests at little cost to rising Sinocentrism.

Critical to the choices ahead for Putin and Trump is how China conceives and pursues its dream of Sinocentrism. Over the first twelve years of Xi Jinping’s leadership of China from 2013 to 2024, the authors observe increasingly assertive moves but also flexibility depending on local circumstances. China’s preferred approach is unmistakable. It advances economic ties as well as infrastructure linkages, giving it an asymmetric advantage. It also insists on censorship to prevent criticism of China—its human rights, political system, and foreign policy. Incorporating states into the BRI is a persistent objective. However, in all directions China has found pushback against Sinocentrism. In Northeast Asia no country has joined the BRI. In Central Asia countries have used ties to Russia and the West to keep China at a distance. India has become part of the Quad with the US and its allies, while resisting both the BRI and a free trade arrangement involving China. Southeast Asian states are divided in their response to China, but many have viewed security ties to the US as means keep some balance. Still, China has seized openings and pushed harder when opportunities presented themselves across its neighborhood. There is no expectation of it backtracking.

Three questions test the prospects of the Grand Strategic Triangle in the face of Sinocentrism in Asia. One, can the US and China in a possible deal agree on the limits of Sinocentrism in Asia? Along with Taiwan, South Korea offers a test case. Two, can China and Russia keep Sinocentrism from interfering with their close partnership? So far, they have largely managed to do so. The case of Kazakhstan is increasingly relevant. Third, can Russia and the US agree on cooperation in Asia? Both partnering with India is a possibility that may eventually be discussed by their leaders.

Chinese articles have made clear that South Korea must distance itself from the US, recognize its place in Eastern civilization, reject US Indo-Pacific initiatives, and forge even closer economic ties including joining the BRI. China charged that the Lee Myung-bak administration abandoned “balance,” Park Geun-hye in 2016 endangered regional security, and Yoon Suk-yeol in 2023 joined in containing China. Moon Jae-in’s diplomacy in 2018 bypassed China, also challenging plans for Sinocentrism, although he is spared similarly harsh accusations. For Xi and Trump to cut a sustainable deal China’s understanding of South Korea’s role in Sinocentrism poses a serious challenge.

As for Kazakhstan, China’s Silk Road Economic Belt (later in the BRI) tested Russian tolerance, new infrastructure bypassing Russia tested it further, and the 2022 Ukraine war gave Beijing an opening to test the division of labor again that Russia had assumed. In economic integration, security involvement, and cultural penetration, China is slowly advancing its claims. If Putin should try to use US ties to gain more leverage against Xi, will China press further in Central Asia, despite the fact Kazakhstan is hesitant to lose the existing balance? The uneasy coexistence of Russian and Chinese approaches to Eurasia is more sustainable if both prioritize opposition to the US, but US pursuit of Putin may call that into question. Some who favor a kind of “reverse Nixon” omit talk of Xi’s options to keep Putin in line.

Finally, India is a test case for Russo-US cooperation in Asia. Both Putin and Trump have close ties to Narendra Modi. If they should solidify triangular relations, this would test Sinocentrism in a big way. India would likely welcome that to keep China at bay. Putin would value it as support for the Greater Eurasian Partnership he craves, to which Xi pays lip service. Moscow and Beijing continue to differ on relations with India. A new US stance could be disruptive. Yet, Narendra Modi may have rebalancing notions of his own, including improving ties to Xi in the first months of 2025.

So far, Sino-Russian relations have found ways to overcome the challenge of Sinocentrism. The 2 vs. 1 line-up in the Grand Strategic Triangle has made that easier. A different role for the Russo-US leg in the triangle could presumably reinforce thinking that close ties between Beijing and Moscow forced this and that such ties must be maintained. Yet, Sinocentrism operates as a time-bomb that could test Xi’s acumen in managing a complicated environment.

The presenters on April 23 agreed that the Sino-Russian nexus is here to stay for the coming period at least, dismissing talk of a “reverse Nixon.” They were confident of the limits of Putin’s rapprochement with Trump and aware that that Xi is assured of the limitations to the US-Russia relationship, even if Chinese for a time were shocked at the rapidity of Trump’s shift of US policy toward Russia and Ukraine. No matter how the Ukraine war ends, this should be seen as just one layer in Sino-Russian cooperation—a long-term alignment. Russia is more dependent on China for energy exports, a major factor in a buyers’ markets for energy. The Russian economy will face difficult adjustments as the war ends or shifts into a less intense stage, keeping Russia heavily dependent on China’s cooperation in economic relations.

One issue raised was the place of North Korea in the Grand Strategic Triangle. Is there a China-Russia-North Korea axis impacting the triangle or is there a sharp split between China and Russia on North Korea that could affect bilateral ties? For Russia, which has been striving to persuade China of its stature as a partner in the triangular framework with the US and as a great power in Asia, closer ties to North Korea may serve that purpose. A quick and decisive victory in Ukraine would have had that effect too, adding that country to the Eurasian Economic Union. Yet, China’s frustration over North Korea complicates this agenda. Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un have a tense relationship, and the proximity of North Korea to China and its Sinocentric thinking poses a burden on this dyad. Russia seems to welcome a troika with China and North Korea, but North Korea is wary, and China does not want to be tainted by association when it is appealing to Europe to take advantage of the rift between Europe and the US. While Moscow is eager for some multilateral manifestation of its alternative world order—not just the SCO and BRICS with their fuzzy agendas—Beijing prefers bilateral ties in practice, strengthening Sino-Russian relations on that basis primarily. Also, it is not likely to regard a state as critical to its Sinocentric thinking as amenable to Russia’s aspirations for status.

On the question of whether Beijing or Moscow would welcome Pyongyang in a trilateral alignment, the answer seems to be that Moscow is more eager. Beijing is more concerned about the North’s nuclear weapons and opposed to US acceptance of it as a nuclear power. If North Korea acts aggressively, Beijing has more to lose, although Moscow may recall the North’s bellicosity of the late 1960s, which threatened it with entrapment.

Much as Americans look back to Nixon’s breakthrough in the Grand Strategic Triangle, Chinese draw on their memory of what transpired. They have no appetite for any recurrence of the Sino-Soviet split, when relations were close to war and the US capitalized on them. Already in the late 1990s the two understood that they must stick together in the face of US pressure, as Russian leaders found reassurance that China wanted a strong Russia. Thus, the strength of the relationship goes beyond personal ties of Putin and Xi. A firm ideological foundation set in the 1990s is enduring. The thorny issue to the 1990s of Russian fear of an irredentist China is no longer a challenge, even if some maps in China treat the island near Khabarovsk as solely China’s contrary to an agreement. Leaders do not take this position nor has migration into Russia revived as an issue. There is no economic incentive for Russia to turn on China, especially after increasingly close trade ties in recent years, reaching $240 billion, including the positive Russian response to a flood of Chinese car imports. Having learned from history, China has treated Russia as a “great power,” not a vassal, toning down Sinocentrism toward Russia despite hints of its existence, leaving a record of tensions, as revealed in both Chinese and Russian publications not centered on affirming that all is fine in the relationship.

Sinocentrism may be diminished in ties toward Russia, but it is not absent nor unrecognized if obscured. Russians are wary of China’s framework for Eurasia. They insist that the two sides agree on multipolarity but know that there is a divide. The Grand Strategic Triangle is Russia’s preferred framework, but China’s thinking about the United States is more bipolar. Moscow and Beijing pledge to work together, but they have very different levels of leverage in Asia. On technical alliances and big industrial projects, such as a civilian airliner, China has left Russia disappointed. Talk of large-scale Russian soybean exports proved exaggerated, as China turned much more to Brazil, given Russia’s limits.

Despite such limitations, China and Russia have greater trust than each has with other countries and recognize that they are driving desired world change together. Their standing in the world depends on each other. There is no similar Russian trust for Trump and far less for the US without Trump. Under Trump, however, Moscow sees the prospect of concessions that would give it leverage for drawing concessions from Beijing too. In a war scenario over Taiwan, there is also the possibility Russia would be more wary of major involvement on China’s behalf should ties to the US be improved. Yet, just as China does not want Russia to lose in Ukraine (not to outright win rather than an uncertain ceasefire), Russia prefers a strong China (but not an emboldened one). That brings triangularity into focus. Each wants the other to stay strong vs. the United States even if Russia’s interest in balancing China with other powers, putting security in the front, differs from China’s interest in preserving globalization as an economic force while putting bipolarity higher on the agenda. China’s approach to Southeast Asia is not to exercise imperial control, unlike Russia’s aims in Eastern Europe. China takes a long-term view as Russia is more direct and confrontational: a taichi style versus a boxer.

Sinocentrism and Southeast Asia

The start of the second Stimson event repeated an overview of Sinocentrism: What is it? How do we learn about it? How has it evolved? The bulk of the session centered on its impact in Southeast Asia. Drawing on the book, three tests of Sinocentrism were described: the BRI, the South China Sea, and the Sino-US area competition.

On the BRI, Southeast Asia was treated as the principal arena. Unlike Northeast Asia, where it is absent, and Central Asia, where it has been limited by Russian resistance and influence, in Southeast Asia China has been least unfettered economically. Countries have been most open to “win-win” arguments and largely on China’s side against protectionism. Yet, in 2025 they have striven to make deals with the US in the face of high tariffs, leading China to counter with warnings that the deals not come at the expense of China’s trade. Through the BRI, China has boosted the prospects of Sinocentrism substantially, even if investment slowed.

On the South China Sea, a different face of China has been exposed. Militarization and insistence on the territorial rights of China against international norms have aroused concern manifested in efforts to find some strategic balance against China. The BRI is bilateral, giving the more powerful state more leverage, and on security at sea China insists on a bilateral approach. Thus, it further undercuts ASEAN centrality, while insisting that it respects that. Rapid military build-ups have greatly advanced Sinocentrism.

As for Sino-US competition, Chinese attempts to blame the US for intensified great power competition have had mixed results, as most states avoid choosing sides and hedge. Reservations about China leave most states searching for some balance of great powers and perpetuation of a degree of ASEAN unity.

Whereas on a global scale the Grand Strategic Triangle is foremost in the minds of geopolitical analysts, the key to the Sino-US competition in the Indo-Pacific arena is Southeast Asia. Unlike Central Asia, where Sino-Russian relations are paramount or Northeast Asia where maintaining non-alignment is not a focus, states in Southeast Asia are largely seeking non-alignment and reassurance that it is not in peril. On the one hand, Trump is threatening their economic strategies to preserve the status quo. On the other, Xi Jinping seeks a new regional security architecture rooted in Sinocentrism to reduce US influence and boost China’s. Yet, Xi’s call for “Asia for Asians” brings back memories of Japan’s policies in the 1940s. Countries see this as a threat to non-alignment, resisting a “new model of great power relations.” Rather than accept a new order led by China, they prefer to accommodate China within the existing order, allowing for a greater role for it.

Sinocentrism predates Xi, as does the mindset that China’s rise and the decline of the US are inevitable. In 2008-09 such thinking deepened. Across Southeast Asia there has been a reaction that the US decline is exaggerated. Yet, Trump’s policies undermining longstanding assumptions about the US have cast doubt on such thinking. At the same time, Southeast Asians have grown more aware of challenges facing China’s economy. While things are more complicated, the US is still seen as the main reservoir of global power. In response to Trump’s tariffs, states are mostly lining up to pay tribute to Trump, as a reflection of US power, even as soft power is declining. More than Biden, Trump reflects US dissatisfaction with the status quo, as if it is being plundered, which mirrors and responds to Chinese dissatisfaction, as it is being contained.

While much is said about the South China Sea, far less attention goes to the Greater Mekong Region, a matter of existential significance for mainland Southeast Asia. Great powers are contesting the former, but China dominates in the latter, favored by geography and the resources it brings to bear, including the dams it has constructed upstream. In the South China Sea, China insists on bilateral diplomacy, but multilateral ties have a greater role in the Mekong setting, even if China wields considerable leverage.

When the issue arose of ASEAN cohesion in response to Trump’s tariffs, the response was that unity is not in sight. Much as China counts on bilateral leverage in its economic ties there, so does Trump. If security in the South China Sea fails to elicit unity, so too does economic pressure from one or the other great power.

Other themes introduced in the webinar were the role of India in Southeast Asia, often in competition with China but not allied with the US, and the impact of a Taiwan contingency, in which energy supplies from the Middle East to China might be interrupted, for which China has diversified its sources of energy. Discussion ranged well beyond the book’s coverage of what Chinese sources tell us but kept to the Sinocentric theme.