8 - China’s Ambitions and the Future of the Global Economy

Summary

If China’s far-reaching market reforms make it the world’s largest economy, then another momentous shift in global dynamics may be under way – a change in the very structure of global capitalism – making the system of global trade and investment more compatible with the Chinese model. How will China’s version of state capitalism affect its trading partners? And will other countries be likely to adopt and adapt some of China’s policy innovations, making its experience a source of new variations in global governance? In the West, officials criticize China as a free rider on the stability of the political order that it treats with skepticism and which it is now trying to change to fit its own interests. But they are complacent in their confidence that a nexus between open markets and open polities is a universal feature of economic prosperity. A larger concern also looms: going global may transform China into a hub within a larger system, and a giant hub at that, but one that is not centrally positioned to control all others. The complexity of the global economy far exceeds the capability of the Chinese Communist Party as a controlling mechanism.