The grand masterplan of China’s Xi Jinping

China’s shift away from muscle-flexing and a confluence of interests with a US-led order offer hope it will not continue to engender large-scale regional instability next year, says Yoon Young-kwan

CHINA spent much of 2014 seeking to revive a concept that Japan proclaimed seven decades ago, when it was an imperial power seeking to impose its will on the region: “Asia for the Asians.” But that effort may not end as badly for China as it did for Japan.

International relations tend to become destabilised by rapid changes in the distribution of power. Established powers’ resistance to their rising counterparts’ demands for a larger role in setting the global agenda fuel tensions and disrupt the existing world order.