many observers and analysts perceive that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has become more assertive and more confrontational in recent years. Certainly, this is the view of prominent political leaders and analysts in the United States and elsewhere.3 Is this perception accurate? Has Beijing under PRC President Xi Jinping adopted a more forceful and more aggressive foreign policy toward Washington and other capitals? What is driving Xi and the PRC’s fifth-generation of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders?

 In this testimony, I contend that while the PRC has been noticeably assertive and confrontational across the board in 2020, what the world has been witnessing is both continuity and change in Chinese foreign policy. Indeed, today there is considerable continuity with the behavior of past decades, but this is amplified because the PRC is now far more powerful and Beijing is responding forcefully to multiple, near-simultaneous challenges. Yet, there is also significant change: In recent decades, CCP leaders have become even more ambitious in terms of the expansive scope of regime goals and activities beyond the borders of the PRC. I suggest that Chinese foreign policy is not at an inflection point in 2020; rather, significant elements of change

blend with considerable continuity with themes from the past. That said, there does appear to

have been a qualitative change in U.S.-China relations and a corresponding sea change in PRC

perceptions of the United States (and vice versa).4

In this testimony, I first define the regime’s grand strategic goals, highlight continuities in

PRC foreign policy, and discern new conditions that influence China’s behavior. Next, I pinpoint

the distinguishing features of the ruling regime and the defining characteristics of the regime’s

current generation of leaders. Then I identify the key domestic context for evaluating the success

of PRC foreign policy and, finally, consider how domestic pressures affect Beijing’s foreign

policy.