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PacNet #52R – China’s Great Power Mentality and Its Diplomatic Vision for the 21st Century

As China embarks on a renewed path of “peaceful development” with its goal of creating a “harmonious world” under its fifth generation leaders, observers are keen to see how the most important bilateral relationship of our time – the United States and China – will evolve. China’s leaders view the first 20 years of this century as a “period of strategic opportunity” to create a “moderately well-off society,” acknowledged in the 18th National Congress of the CPC with slogans such as the “Great Revitalization of the Chinese Nation” and the “Chinese Dream.” Likewise, younger generations of Chinese people have been raised to believe forecasts from Goldman Sachs and the IMF that predict China will become the number one economic power in coming years.