CHINA has set its sights on world domination with a tinpot empire of rogue states, ruthless tyrants, a massive military, debt trap schemes, and help from Xi Jinping's lackey Vladimir Putin.
China is cosying up to a vast network of nations – including Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia – as it seeks to expand its influence on a global scale in a brazen challenge to the West.
Under Xi- China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong – China has grand plans to establish itself on the world stage as a "pioneering global influence" by 2050.
Experts told The Sun Online in no uncertain terms that the time is coming for China to lay down the gauntlet for the West.
They explained Xi is now "tired of western influence" as he dreams of becoming "most powerful global power" – and he sees Putin and war in Ukraine as a moment to seize the initiative.
Beijing has plans to have the world's most powerful military, wants to up its nuclear stockpile, and is extending a friendly hand to a web of potential new allies.
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China's ambition is obvious – and they are on a collision course with the US for the title of world's top global powerhouse.
Xi is understood to want China to be the one-and-only undisputed superpower – which would allow them to shape world affairs in their image.
Putin and Xi met this week in Russia – with many observers saying it was the Chinese leader who was in control, despite him being hosted in Moscow.
And despite Vlad dreaming of Russia being the top power in the world's stage, it appears he may find himself as a junior partner to a eager and forceful China.
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Xi hailed Vladimir Putin as a "dear friend" as the two leaders appear to increasingly align themselves against the West.
As the 70-year-old left Russia, he told the Russian tyrant: "Change is coming."
'PROTECTION RACKET'
Xi is working to shore up a robust web of allies around the world – whether through open diplomacy or more sinister economic policies, such as "debt traps".
China's tendrils are now extending far beyond the Indo-Pacific – reaching deep into the Middle East, Africa and beyond.
They boast of an "all-weather" partnership with Pakistan, a mutual defence treaty with North Korea, and an "unbreakable" friendship with Belarus.
Where the West seeks to reinforce the existing rules, China is trying to create new ones.
Xi is attempting to cement the Communist Party's hold on power by carving out a regional sphere of influence.
"Xi has a vision for China becoming the most powerful global power," Ashok Swain, professor of peace and security at Uppsala University, told The Sun Online.
Putin is only a means for Xi to achieve the end
"He also believes Putin is becoming a major factor in helping him achieve that goal sooner.
"Those who had predicted Xi distancing from Putin after the Ukraine war were simply unable to gauge Xi's game plan and the major role Putin's Russia plays in it."
Professor Swain said the ominous words confirm China is not shying away from telling the world it wants "to bring a complete change to the global power structure in its favour and sees Russia as a useful and important ally".
"Putin is only a means for Xi to achieve the end," he said.
"They are friends because both need each other. But, Xi sees China at the top of global power politics and Russia as playing a supportive role only.
"The war in Ukraine makes Putin more dependent upon China and Xi stronger.
"Historically, China has been very uncomfortable with a powerful Russia, and Xi knows that history well."
OVERTAKING AMERICA
Isabel Sawkins, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society specialising in Russia, said Russia and China joining forces could "potentially could be catastrophic" for Western powers.
"This would mean America's standing in the world will be absolutely shot to pieces," she previously told The Sun Online.
"If you have Russia and China working together the US is going to go into absolute panic.
"You would have China working with Russia and them both having this anxiety over the West – and that brings them together. That's a really terrifying prospect."
In 2017, Xi announced China had entered a "new era" and must "take centre stages" – and his ambitions show no sign of dampening.
China has also established a solid foothold in Africa, pumping billions of pounds into infrastructure projects and bolstering its influence under its massive Belt and Road Initiative.
Its influence is also mounting in the Middle East – where it is said to have recently brokered a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia after years of hostilities between the two nations.
China experts Hal Brands and Michael Beckley said China wants to be "the geopolitical sun around which the system revolves".
According to analysis from Newsweek, its closest diplomatic and economic allies are currently Russia, Pakistan and North Korea.
It has also secured top-level "cooperative" partnerships with Belarus, Cambodia, Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya, Laos, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Thailand, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.
DEBT TRAPS
In some cases, China has been accused of using "debt trap" projects to ensnare poorer countries and expand its power worldwide.
The initiative has seen China get its hands on resource rich mountains in Tajikistan and allegedly take a stake in a key port in Sri Lanka.
Experts are concerned that as debt mounts, many projects will go unfinished – and Chinese lenders will seize control of land and strategic assets in lieu of repayment.
Some suggest it is part of a plan to further China's ambitions using "predatory loans" to bring nations' under their sphere of influence.
"In most parts of Sub-Saharan, China has already displaced the US and has become the primary influencer," Professor Swain said.
He added: "China is fast becoming a major power player in the Middle East.
"The US troops' withdrawal from Afghanistan allows China to influence Afghanistan policy in the years to come. Even in Israel, China’s influence has expanded rapidly.
"In the coming years, the potential flashpoints will be Iran and Ethiopia.
"China is already openly engaged in recruiting these two countries as allies while the US is doing everything to retain its influences."
Professor Kerry Brown, from the Lau China Institute at King's College London, said China is "tired of the West's victories".
He told The Sun Online: "China is trying to show that it's not just a choice between the West's way of resolving issues or nothing else, but there might, there just might, be another way.
"It is tired of the West's victories, which are often short sighted, short term and self interested."
MILITARY MIGHT
Professor Brown previously warned China will blast the United States off the top spot to become the world's top economic and military power within the next decade.
The People's Liberation Army now has the world's second-largest annual budget after the US armed forces.
It has more than 915,000 active-duty troops, dwarfing the US, which has about 486,000 active soldiers, according to 2021's Pentagon China Military Power Report.
The army has also been stocking its arsenal with increasingly high-tech weapons – and has tested hypersonic weapons at least twice.
As Taiwan and the South China Sea emerges as a flashpoint, China is also expanding its navy.
"Economically, barring total disaster for China, it will be the largest economy some time in the next decade," Professor Brown told The Sun.
"It will be a superpower with Chinese characteristics, meaning it will want a major space for its own ambitions, but it won't want to take on leadership of the rest of the world.
If you have Russia and China working together the US is going to go into absolute panic
"It does not desire to become the West, or have the West become like it."
As Putin's disastrous war in Ukraine rages on, China has served up a 12-point peace plan.
Professor Brown said the proposal was "very abstract" – but added it's an example of China trying to show the world that a different path is possible.
"Perhaps the point is that they don't believe in an outcome being sustainable where one side prescribes and the other simply complies," he explained.
"The unpalatable fact about Russia and Ukraine is that any outcome where one side unilaterally walks away looking like it has won means that there will be resentments and angers stored up which will simply come to bite us down the track."
He said China is trying to prove that a draw "is probably the one that might stick".
"If the collapse of the USSR had been better handled by everyone – and that includes people in Russia, to be fair – then we probably wouldn't be facing this mess today," Professor Brown said.
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"Whether China will succeed in this mission, who knows," Professor Brown said.
"But why deny it the right to try. And what precisely does the world outside do if China beats the odds and actually does achieve a breakthrough?"
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