China's Geostrategic Pursuit of Global Centrality
This study is an attempt to decipher the mechanisms China has put in place and used for its ascent as a global power and its pursuit of global centrality. The approach is based on the reference to the structuration of networks and the shifting dynamics in play within networks. The global economy is a context that provides such developments and it takes the use of national capabilities, including strategic options, geographic conditions, and resources, for national economies to make their presence in the network beneficial. Not only is China but it also being proactive through the strategic influence around the world by creating the conditions to increase the levels of its advantages. It is not instructive enough to contemplate China's presence and involvement in multiple trade networks and decide of its dominance in the international trade network.
Presence alone does not explain China's approach, which is determined by underlying motivations expressed by its leadership's intent to assert China's national interest in pursuing national rejuvenation and centrality, and by policy reforms methodically implemented throughout the years. Presence only points to the edges or links countries have within the network. From the perspective of network analysis, the most revealing factor of China's geostrategic approach is the size of the nodes by which it is represented in the networks, which in fact is the result of the number of edges to which it is connected. It is not an exaggeration to assert that the size, as well as its mere presence or the numbers of edges linked to China, will continue to signal China's growing influence, whose impact is being felt around the globe through trade partnerships determined by China's behavior and investments. Trade dominance achieved through widespread partnership and the taming of geographic limits and conditions has strategically contributed to China's centrality