China was happier to deal with the Biden administration after the turbulent years of the first Trump administration. However, it chose to start with a confrontationist approach. During the Alaska Summit, Wang Yi said in front of the cameras that “the US had no right to talk to China from a position of strength”. This came on the back of other confrontations on issues of Xinjiang, cybersecurity, Taiwan and Hong Kong, but also from the assessment that there was a bipartisan consensus in the US on containing China’s rise. China has been seeking parity in global rule-making since the days of Barack Obama, through initiatives like the G2 in the aftermath of the global economic crisis of 2008. However, the US responded to it with the Pivot to Asia strategy and continued to expand its military engagement in the region. It also accepted the vocabulary of Indo Pacific and expanded the idea of ‘rules-based order’, which China says is aimed at curtailing its rights and leadership role in the region. China has always looked for an alternative development narrative. Now, it has the capacity to back up its wish list. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is already over ten years old and China has expanded it. Its three recent initiatives: the Global Security Initiative (GSI), the Global Development Initiative (GDI) and the Global Civilizational Initiative (GCI) indicate that China has started the process wherein it wants to replace the US, in the United Nations (UN) and outside, as the global norm setter and as a provider of global public goods. China is also actively seeking a reform of global governance system and Trump’s withdrawal and discrediting the United Nations (UN) boosts the Chinese game plan. UN documents already include Chinese vocabulary of common and collective security which is a not so tacit criticism of the US hegemony and unilateralism. From a Chinese perspective, multilateralism may lead to multipolarity through dilution of the American power and create a vacuum for China to fill.