China’s foreign policy identity has flip-flopped as superpower competition shifted

Evidence

During the 1950s China defined itself as an ally of the Soviet Union. Then, after the Sino-Soviet split, it saw itself as the leader of the Third World against both the superpowers, which produced substantial costs and few benefits. After the shift in U.S. policy in the Nixon administration, China sought to be the third party in a balance of power game with the two superpowers, aligning itself with the United States during the 1970s when the United States seemed weak and then shifting to a more equidistant position in the 1980s as U.S. military power increased and the Soviet Union declined economically and became bogged down in Afghanistan. With the end of the superpower competition, however, the “China card” lost all value, and China was compelled once more to redefine its role in world affairs. It set two goals: to become the champion of Chinese culture, the core state civilizational magnet toward which all other Chinese communities would orient themselves, and to resume its historical position, which it lost in the nineteenth century, as the hegemonic power in East Asia. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 456