DATE: 23 - 24 SEPTEMBER 2025
VENUE: INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE (IIC), NEW DELHI
Theme: China’s ‘Dream’ for a New Mandate of Power
The 21st century is witnessing a historic reconfiguration of global power, marked by the rise of China and challenges to the post-Cold War liberal order. China’s strategic trajectory and global posture today reflects more than material advancement –it embodies a strategic ambition to project an alternative vision of order, governance and global engagement.
The theme of this year’s conference, China’s ‘Dream’ for a New Mandate of Power, invites critical scrutiny of the evolving ideological, institutional and geopolitical foundations of China’s contemporary statecraft under President Xi Jinping. The phrase “Mandate of Power” intentionally echoes the ancient Confucian principle of the Mandate of Heaven or tianming (天命), which conferred legitimacy upon rulers contingent on their ability to sustain order and deliver prosperity. In the modern context, this moral-political logic is being reimagined as a legitimating framework through which the Communist Party of China (CPC) seeks both domestic authority and international influence.
This year’s conference interrogates how China is exporting a new model of global order –through state led capitalism, infrastructure diplomacy, digital authority, controlled multilateralism –all framed under the ideological narrative of the “China Dream” (中国梦). This dream is not merely a nationalist project or a narrative of ‘rejuvenation’, but also a conceptual umbrella that asserts China’s right to reshape the norms, hierarchies, and rules of the international system. China’s assertive quest for a new mandate of power is reshaping that threshold—from territorial sovereignty conflicts in Asia to embedding its leadership in UN agencies and forging cross-continental influence through infrastructure-led statecraft. The conference will also critically examine how China’s military modernization—anchored in strategic innovation, civil-military fusion, and expanding expeditionary capabilities—constitutes a central pillar of its broader mandate of power.
China’s pursuit, however, is neither linear nor unchallenged. Its projection faces growing pushback across multiple frontiers: strategic contestation in the Indo-Pacific, ideological resistance from liberal democracies, structural vulnerabilities within its own economy, and increasing scrutiny from Global South actors wary of dependency and political leverage. These frictions invite a fundamental question: Is China’s search for a “new mandate of power” sustainable—and if so, at what cost to the existing world order?
As the only China-focused annual conference in India rooted in both strategic studies and political sociology, GCNS embodies ORCA’s intellectual mission: to craft a new vocabulary of China analysis that is theoretically rigorous, policy-relevant, and globally engaged. In 2025, GCNS aims to move beyond the binaries of cooperation versus containment and instead frame China as a complex, evolving node in a system of competing mandates. It is not merely about what China is, but what China wants to become—and what that ambition demands of the rest of the world.
This year’s GCNS 2025 will follow ORCA’s distinctive structure, combining Thematic Panels, Roundtables, Keynote Addresses, Expert Speaks and Closed door Roundtables. This amalgamated format is ideated with the vision of promoting cross-disciplinary dialogue and enabling policy-academic synergy—hallmarks of the GCNS tradition.
GCNS 2024
GCNS 2023