Abstract: This article applies the Nexon/Wright concept of ideal-type empire to the study of China’s post-2012 peripheral relations to demonstrate that the Xi administration is engaged in a concerted imperialist policy towards its developing neighbour states. Using the Nexon/Wright framework, the article demonstrates how the establishment of a China-centric regional network structure undergirds the Xi administration’s key foreign policy concepts and how these concepts, in turn, inform China’s bilateral relations with its peripheral states. To demonstrate how China employs imperialist tactics to its pursuit of a regionally based order, the article examines China’s bilateral relations with the developing states on its periphery: Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam.