(This is the third part of a series on China’s effort to supplant the U.S. as the world’s pre-eminent geopolitical power. Read the first two parts here: A Global Military Threat | Exporting an Ideology.)

The basic theme of this series has been the degree to which the challenge posed by rising, assertive China has both intensified and changed in recent years, as Beijing’s global ambitions and initiatives have reached a new level. While most Westerners are familiar with Beijing’s efforts to do so through its economic power and growing military might, another facet of that campaign has received less attention: China’s intensifying efforts to remake the international institutional order.