Since 2002, China’s leaders – including President Xi Jinping – have characterized the initial two
decades of the 21st century as a “period of strategic opportunity.”

They assess that during this
time international conditions will facilitate domestic development and the expansion of China’s
“comprehensive national power,” which outside observers believe will serve what they assess to
be the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) overriding strategic objectives:
-Perpetuate CCP rule;
-Maintain domestic stability;
-Sustain economic growth and development;
-Defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity;
-Secure China’s status as a great power and, ultimately, reacquire regional preeminence;
and
-Safeguard China’s interests abroad.
The CCP has distilled these objectives into President Xi’s “China Dream of national
rejuvenation.” The concept, first articulated by Xi shortly after the 2012 leadership transition,
encapsulates a long-standing national aspiration of establishing a powerful and prosperous
China. President Xi and other leaders also link the China Dream to two high-profile centenary
goals: achieving a “moderately prosperous society” by the 100th anniversary of the CCP in 2021,
and building a “prosperous, strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious, and beautiful modernized
socialist strong country” by the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic
of China (PRC) in 2049. At the 19th Party Congress in October 2017, President Xi also
enumerated objectives for the “basic realization of socialist modernization” by 2035, which
included China becoming one of the most “innovation-oriented” countries, significant
enhancement of the country’s soft power, and continued economic prosperity. China has also
established plans to achieve global leadership in strategic industries and advance its military
modernization.
DOD, Assessment on U.S. Defense Implications of China’s Expanding Global Access,
December 2018, p.1