5. China as Socializer

This chapter analyzes the consolidation of China’s 21^st-century-style postmodern global power identity associated with the construction of a new, Chinese-led international order. The latter relies on a set of Chinese multilateral institutions that prominently include the Belt and Road Initiative. The process of Chinese socialization it enacts is examined in detail in a separate subchapter, which points to the creation of an international center-periphery structure based on patron-client relationships. The same Initiative has been instrumental in the development of two Chinese-centered globalizations ‘from above’ and ‘from below.’ The former upgraded China the postmodern global power to a ‘head’ nation in control of new transnational economic flows and institutional mechanisms of global governance. The ‘from below’ globalization led to the ‘transnationalisation of the Chinese nation-state’ based on the use of a deterritorial Chinese identity. Both reinforce Beijing’s international order as a thick order that relies on massive and diverse globalizing flows of goods and people. As a result, China’s 21^st-century-style postmodern global power identity has finally reached maturity. At present, this identity plays an important role in shaping world politics. In the future, however, challenges that notably include the American counteroffensive might significantly alter both its features and its international impact.