The geopolitical vision of Chinese leaders: geopolitical codes and geographic mental maps

This paper aims to clarify the geopolitical vision of Chinese leaders in guiding China’s foreign policy over the last two decades. It does so by analyzing China’s geopolitical codes – which involve reasoning based on a set of political-geographical assumptions about security – in shaping the geographic mental maps of Chinese leaders. The article focuses on places where China projects its influence and power, examining how Chinese leaders view these locations. The geopolitical codes analyzed include the Belt and Road Initiative and the active defense doctrine. The methodology used to infer China’s elite geographic mental map relies on public statements, documents from China’s decision-making bodies, analyses by Chinese military experts, and academic studies. The paper contends that the geopolitical vision of China’s leaders consists of concentric rings of island chains controlled by the US and its allies, which obstruct China’s free movements and compromise its national interest, as well as serving as benchmarks for the operational geographic scope of the Chinese navy.