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China’s rise as a superpower started during the Cold War. From 1945 onward, Beijing expanded its influence across both Southeast Asia and Africa, clashed with the U.S. in bloody wars and nearly went to nuclear war with the USSR. By playing the East and the West against each other, China came out stronger after 1989 - rejecting Western values while becoming the world’s factory. By taking advantage of this three-part narrative, China has strategically positioned itself to dominate the 21st century.

Feared by both the Americans and the Soviets, Communist China has been one of the major players of global history since 1949. Though often overlooked, its demographic scale, military power, and ideological ambition – along with its post-Bandung leadership of the ‘Third World’ - forced the world to look at it. Although it served at times as adversary, ally, or mediator between the two superpowers, China did not hesitate to abandon rigid communism in order to align itself more closely with the United States and with their help, launched its economic transformation. And it was after 1989 that China as we know it today came into being. Opposing the victory of “Western values,” it therefore rejected any challenge to its political regime while becoming the world’s largest factory. To take a fresh look at the history of the second half of the 20th century through China's perspective is to gain insight into why and how the Middle Kingdom has transformed itself since the early 2000s into a sprawling empire.