Chinese Foreign Relations

Summary

China’s foreign relations since 1949 have been on balance quite successful in achieving a variety of goals, such as strategic positioning between the Soviet Union and United States during the Cold War. China has also used its foreign relations to build its economy to the second largest in the world. Doing so involved a substantial change of its foreign relations from self-reliance and isolation to importing, processing, and exporting. Its relations with the United States and advanced industrial democracies have suffered since 2009, but its relations with the Global South have generally improved.