Chinese diplomacy generally comes in all sizes and shapes, but until relatively recently the size was small and the shape a question mark.
Decades of international isolation did little to nudge many nuances into its foreign policy. Under Mao Zedong especially, China didn't so much as conduct secret diplomacy under the table as it simply would duck issues while hiding under the table.
It was nearly pathologically involvement-adverse. You could almost imagine that for the longest time the Chinese-language character for foreign policy was the same as the one for foreign contagion — as in, don't get involved and you won't become ill.