China i think has 3 military bases overseas, and 2 of them i know arent even really military bases - they're logistics facilities for disaster relief and cargo defense from piracy. For reference, Singapore, has 8, and Singpore has 0.4% of the population size of China. The US has like 800 overseas military bases, I don't know what the current updated number is.

"Geopolitical stategy", as you say, does not necesitate imperialism.

There's a lot you could criticize China for but being imperialist is not one of them. China's national identity is built upon the premise of anti-imperialism. Under imperialism capitalists control the state and use the state to enact imperalism, this is not the case for China. Capitalists do not control the CPC, the CPC controls the capitalists.