Hal Brands, Columnist

China's Foreign Policy Weapons: Technology, Coercion, Corruption

Beijing is trying to create old-fashioned spheres of influence with a 21st-century twist.

January 25, 2021 at 12:00 AM UTC

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Showing the flag.
Photographer: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images

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China’s drive for dominance combines timeless ambitions with 21st-century methods. Look no further than Beijing’s growing quest for spheres of influence. Like countless great powers before it, China aims to shape and control its surroundings. It aspires to create geopolitical domains in which its interests are protected and its prerogatives heeded.

Yet Beijing is doing so, in part, through a digital-age approach to strategic rivalry, one that is forcing its rivals to rethink what spheres of influence are and how best to contest them.