China’s foreign policy ambitions

Chinese President Xi Jingping is looking to greater political contact to complement China’s status as the world’s second biggest economy. Although Chinese analysts are emphatic that Beijing is far from seeing its economic weight matched in the diplomatic or military spheres, they agree that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is growing in sophistication, as well as size, and that the new leadership may be tempted towards a more charismatic foreign policy than the Communist Party of China (CPC) top team they replaced in November 2012. Xi is paramount leader in the new senior CPC line-up, accumulating jobs that include state president, party general secretary and Central Military Commission president.