In 1999, the American journal Foreign Affairs published the article ‘Does China Matter?’ The answer given by its author Gerald Segal was devastating: ‘Odd as it may seem, the country that is home to a fifth of humankind is overrated as a market, a power, and a source of ideas. At best, China is a second-rank middle power that has mastered the art of diplomatic theatre: It has us willingly suspending our disbelief in its strength. In fact, China is better understood as a theoretical power – a country that has promised to deliver for much of the last 150 years but has consistently disappointed.’ In 2018, this opinion is no longer tenable. China has grown into an economic superpower. Its market for cars is bigger than that of the United States; four of the ten biggest banks in the world are Chinese; and through its large-scale investments, the economies of most African countries have been unrecognisably changed. And we could go on like this for a while. Even so, Segal's position is not altogether outdated, for mentally China is still not ready for global leadership. It remains – as substantiated convincingly by David Shambaugh in his book China Goes Global: The Partial Power – an introverted country that does not want to take the lead in world affairs. ‘It is punching below its weight,’ as Americans so nicely put it.

But as with most things in modern China, this position of reticence is changing as well. China increasingly manifests itself as a regional, even global power, fighting pirates off the coast of Somalia, evacuating its nationals from Libya and Yemen, and holding naval exercises with the Russians in the Mediterranean. Domestic developments are the reason for this willingness ‘to take some actions’. Since the 2008 Olympic Games, control of Chinese society has been tightened: State-owned businesses have regained the influence they had lost under Zhu Rongji (China's premier from 1998–2003), the presence of the Party in people's everyday lives has intensified, and enthusiasm for political reforms has evaporated. Abroad, this situation translates into a more assertive and more nationalistic policy.