Power & Legitimacy: The Domestic Engine of China’s Global Strategy

China’s global behaviour cannot be understood by analysing foreign policy alone—it must be read through the lens of domestic legitimacy. This strategic intelligence product by Global Eye Intelligence deconstructs how Beijing’s external actions are tightly bound to its internal political survival, ideological control, and narrative management.

The analysis explains how economic performance, propaganda, institutional design, and overseas projects form a continuous feedback loop. Initiatives such as infrastructure corridors, digital standards, and overseas security engagement are not merely tools of influence abroad; they are designed to reinforce the Chinese Communist Party’s authority at home by converting external success into domestic legitimacy. As growth slows and economic performance becomes a weaker pillar, ideology, nationalism, and visible global assertion are increasingly used to sustain political control.

The report further examines how projects across Eurasia, South Asia, Africa, and the Indo-Pacific function as legitimacy theatres—where success is amplified internally and failure is reframed as external hostility. Scenario matrices outline how shifts in growth, elite cohesion, or social pressure could push China toward assertive expansion, selective retrenchment, or calibrated aggression.

Why this matters now: every Chinese offer, investment, or diplomatic move carries political weight beyond economics. Those who recognise this early can interpret intent accurately; those who don’t risk misreading strategy as transaction.

Follow Global Eye Intelligence to stay ahead of China’s strategic logic before its consequences become unavoidable.