A World Safe for Autocracy

What does China actually want from its growing global power? Is conflict with the United States inevitable? What China Wants challenges the prevailing view that Beijing is driven by an unwavering ambition to supplant the United States and remake the world order. Drawing on decades of research and a wealth of primary sources, Jessica Chen Weiss argues that Chinese foreign policy is better understood through the lens of three core imperatives — sovereignty, security, and development — that are frequently in tension, producing unexpected shifts in behavior rather than a coherent grand strategy. The book takes readers inside the tradeoffs the Chinese government must navigate to explore how nationalist pressures, development imperatives, and deep insecurity over the Party's legitimacy shape the way the Chinese Communist Party governs at home and engages abroad. It examines the role of Taiwan, the flexibility of CCP ideology, China's influence in international institutions and in countries across the world, and its contested bid for global leadership — showing in each case how the interplay of Beijing's core priorities creates far more room for maneuver than most analysts allow. Weiss argues that China is not a monolith, that ideology is not a driver of Chinese foreign policy, and that nationalism constrains the leadership as much as empowers it. Grasping this complexity is essential to understanding what China wants — and what it can realistically achieve — in the shifting global order. Avoiding conflict requires both Washington and Beijing to invest in credible assurances, address shared global challenges, and resist the temptation to treat competition as an end in itself.