Today, conflicting understandings of China jostle for attention, as dominant Anglophone narratives contrast with mainstream Chinese discourses. Across much of the West, perceptions of China have changed markedly, from assumptions about China's ‘convergence’ through engagement to a politics of irreconcilable difference and confrontation. This book examines how views of China as a risen, global power have shifted by critiquing three dominant narratives: the return of geopolitics, contesting liberal order and collaborative governance. While the first two narratives are strongest in the West, the third is primarily embedded in Chinese global visions. Based on this critique, and responding to the notion that ‘it is probably time to use the language of China risen’ (Breslin, 2021, p 2), the book sets out a nuanced account of China as a major global power, with its main focus on the period of Xi Jinping's leadership (2012– ).

The book bridges work in China Studies and International Relations, Global Political Economy and critical geopolitics to examine the three narratives using the lens of the politics of knowledge production and discourse, based on a foundational comprehensive review of relevant academic literatures which explain and conceptualize China's rise. Rejecting simplistic perspectives and the idea that China is a completely different ‘other’, it argues that China as a global power needs to be understood in all its contested complexity and to be taken seriously on its own terms as a distinctive entity, but one whose development and visions have emerged in dialectical, intertwined relationships with many existing features of global order.