This article is a theoretical and empirical investigation on China`s concerns for ‘international status’ in explaining China`s ‘new assertiveness’ in the 2010s. While many relevant studies on China, since 2008, debate on whether China shifted to new, abrasive, assertive external policy, these studies are found to be rather limited in both theoretical and contextual rigor in identifying the actual mechanism where China`s conception of its status and the world order plays a critical role in China`s policy changes. For theoretical elaboration, this article develops an eclectic realist-constructivist framework of status competition on the basis of existing IR literatures, especially the works by Yong Deng (constructivist) and William C. Wohlforth (realist) on status competition. On the basis of the framework, this article devises testable hypotheses that can outline how China`s conception of self-status is formed (main variables), changed, and influenced China`s allegedly newly assertive external behaviors in the international system. For contextual rigor and testing of the status factor in explaining the modus operandi of China, the latter section of the article focuses on China`s activities within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) - which many point out as the ‘exemplary’ case of China`s new diplomacy ­ as the central empirical test-bed for the article`s analysis.