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situation in order not to get lost in complexity and the changing international situation.”
Xi concludes on this count by stating that “throughout human history, the development of the
world has always been the result of contradictions intertwining and interacting with each
other.”

Once again, all this will seem more than a little arcane. But in the ideological dialect of the
Communist Party, it seems to mean several things. First, that there is nothing random about
what is unfolding in the world today. Second, these reflect certain immutable laws of political
and economic development. Third, the business of Chinese foreign policy is to use this dialectal
prism to understand precisely what is happening in the world today, why it is happening and
what to do about it. And fourth, applying these disciplines to the current period, it means that
the global order is at a turning point with the relative decline of the US and the West, with
this coinciding with the fortuitous national and international circumstances currently enabling
China’s rise.

To use Xi’s own language, this: “has been in the best period of development since modern
times, while the world is undergoing the most profound and unprecedented changes in a
century” adding that “the two aspects are intertwined and interact with each other.” Xi refers
to the current period as a period of unprecedented strategic opportunity for China and the
current mission of the party. Although this is not itself a new term, Xi says the party’s mission
is to extend this period. To do this, he calls for the party to engage in “in-depth analysis of
the law of how the international situation changes as the world comes into this transitional
period, as well as developing an accurate grasp of the basic characteristics of the external
environment China is facing at this historical juncture in order to better plan and facilitate the
country’s work on foreign affairs.”

In other words, what is being said here is that China now has the wind at its back. Of course
there are formidable obstacles ahead. But a dialectical analysis of history causes China to
conclude that the forces of reaction facing the US and the West are greater. Just as the
contradictions operating domestically within the US and the West (in their particular political
systems) are greater as well. Which in turn renders China’s overall domestic and international
circumstances much better by comparison in the emerging contest between the two. All of
which, again in this view, pushes towards a new historical synthesis more in China’s (and
Chinese socialism’s) favour.

You will all be forgiven if you think this all sounds more like medieval theology than modern
international relations. And it’s anyone’s guess what any of this actually will have to do with
concrete foreign policy reality. But we often forget that how one-party states, and in particular
Marxist states, choose to ‘ideate’ reality actually matters. It’s how the system speaks to itself.
It’s the political lingua franca among political and policy elites.

And the important thing here is that the message from Xi Jinping to his international policy
elite is one of great confidence. Not just because China wills it to be so, but because from a
Marxist theoretical perspective, which in their view articulates certain immutable ‘laws’ of
political and economic development, the forces of history are now with China. Furthermore,

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