The Silk Road, an obscure Kazakh-inspired security forum and a $50 billion Asian infrastructure bank are just some of the disparate elements in an evolving Chinese strategy to try to counter Washington's "pivot" to the region.
While Chinese leaders have not given the government's growing list of initiatives a label or said they had an overall purpose, Chinese experts and diplomats said Beijing appeared set on shaping Asia's security and financial architecture more to its liking.
"China is trying to work out its own counterbalance strategy," said Sun Zhe, director of the Centre for U.S.-China Relations at Beijing's Tsinghua University and who has advised China's government on its foreign policy.