Chinese leaders do like their slogans, and where foreign policy is concerned, two have reflected Beijing's thinking in recent times.

The first is the cautious principle of tao guang yang hui, usually rendered in English as "hide your light and bide your time", which guided Chinese policy for decades after Deng Xiaoping established it in the 1980s. In late 2013, though, President Xi Jinping coined a new slogan to define a more assertive, muscular approach: fen fa you wei, or "strive for achievement".