Chinese Assertiveness, Ideational Mobilization, and the Rise of Xi Jinping

This book examines the historical, domestic, and leadership drivers behind the repositioning of China toward center stage after 2008. In the years of global turmoil that followed the 2008 global financial crisis, China’s foreign policy of the late Hu Jintao years came to be viewed in Western discourse as increasingly "assertive." Displaying a certain cognitive dissonance, China, however, vehemently rejects this viewpoint. Especially after Xi Jinping rose to power in 2012, it is clear that China