https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0028-3130
![Sample our Urban Studies journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110826/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Urban-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Many regional and national development questions involve the interaction of external and internal evolutions and can be conceived macroeconomically in balance-of-payments terms. In this light, China’s engagement in international trade, outward and inward foreign direct investment, accumulation of reserves, development cooperation, aid and international finance initiatives are examined and related to evolving domestic and international conditions. After joining the Western-centred international economic and political order, while protecting its economic and political sovereignty and defining itself as part of the Global South, China emerged as a very large semi-peripheral upper-middle-income country. In the new millennium China and other emerging economies started to upgrade into higher value-added sectors and to reshape international governance arrangements in ways that reflect the civilisational values and colonial and semi-colonial experience of the Global South. Although these steps do challenge the unequal and unfair ‘liberal rules-based order’ and US hegemony, they also help create a more equitable and peaceful multipolar world system.
摘要
中国的国际经济参与的演变:中国威胁还是公平的多极世界秩序中的新一极? Area Development and Policy. 许多区域和国家的发展问题涉及到外部和内部演变的相互作用, 这可以从国际收支的宏观经济角度来考虑。有鉴于此, 我们对中国参与国际贸易、对外直接投资和外商直接投资、外汇储备积累、发展合作、援助和国际金融倡议进行了研究, 并将其与不断变化的国内和国际条件联系起来。在加入以西方为中心的国际经济和政治秩序的同时保护其经济和政治主权, 并将自己定位为全球南方国家的一部分之后, 中国成为一个非常庞大的半边缘的中高收入国家。在新的千年里, 中国和其他新兴经济体开始向具有更高附加值的行业部门升级, 并以反映全球南方国家的文明价值观以及殖民地和半殖民地经历的方式重塑国际治理秩序。尽管这些措施确实挑战了不平等和不公平的’基于规则的自由秩序’和美国霸权, 但它们也有助于建立一个更加公平与和平的多极世界体系。
Resumen
Participación económica internacional de China en evolución: ¿Amenaza china o un nuevo polo en un orden mundial multipolar y justo? Area Development and Policy. Muchas de las cuestiones de desarrollo de ámbito regional y nacional tienen que ver con la interacción de evoluciones externas e internas y se pueden concebir desde una perspectiva macroeconómica en cuanto a la balanza de pagos. En este contexto, en este estudio analizamos la participación de China en el comercio internacional, la inversión extranjera directa interior y exterior, la acumulación de reservas, la cooperación de desarrollo, la ayuda y las iniciativas de financiación, y la relacionamos con las condiciones cambiantes tanto nacionales como internacionales. Tras integrarse en el orden económico y político internacional centrado en los países occidentales, protegiendo a la vez su soberanía económica y política y autodefiniéndose como parte del hemisferio sur, China ha surgido como un gran país semiperiférico con renta media alta. En el nuevo milenio, China y otras economías emergentes han empezado a modernizarse en sectores con un mayor valor añadido y remodelar los acuerdos de gobernanza internacional de maneras que reflejan los valores de la civilización y las experiencias coloniales y semicoloniales del hemisferio sur. Aunque estas medidas desafían el ‘orden liberal basado en normas’ desigual e injusto y la hegemonía de los Estados Unidos, también permiten crear un sistema mundial multipolar más justo y pacífico.
Аннотация
Развивающееся международное экономическое участие Китая: китайская угроза или новый полюс в справедливом многополярном мировом порядке? Area Development and Policy. Многие вопросы регионального и национального развития связаны с взаимодействием внешней и внутренней эволюции и могут быть рассмотрены с макроэкономической точки зрения в терминах платежного баланса. В этом свете рассматриваются участие Китая в международной торговле, внешние и внутренние прямые иностранные инвестиции, накопление резервов, сотрудничество в целях развития, помощь и международные финансовые инициативы, связанные с меняющимися внутренними и международными условиями. Присоединившись к ориентированному на Запад международному экономическому и политическому порядку, защищая свой экономический и политический суверенитет и определяя себя как часть Глобального Юга, Китай превратился в очень крупную полупериферийную страну с доходом выше среднего. В новом тысячелетии Китай и другие страны с формирующейся экономикой начали переходить к секторам с более высокой добавленной стоимостью и перестраивать международные механизмы управления таким образом, чтобы они отражали цивилизационные ценности и колониальный и полуколониальный опыт Глобального Юга. Хотя эти шаги действительно бросают вызов неравноправному и несправедливому ‘либеральному порядку, основанному на правилах’, и гегемонии Соединенных Штатов, они также помогают создать более справедливую и мирную многополярную мировую систему.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Differences in development derive from differential circular and cumulative processes of investment and productivity growth along with command and control over the resources of other territories (acquisition of their wealth, currency seigniorage, and unequal exchange through trade and investment). Theories of unequal exchange are concerned with what one country’s goods and services, labour or environmental resources earn in terms of those of other countries. Monetary transfers of value from developing to developed countries can derive from specialisation in industries associated with different terms of trade or degrees of capital intensity (after equalisation of rates of profit), differences in productivity-adjusted wage rates and in profit rates, exchange rates and prices (profit on alienation as a result of discounts and buying cheap and selling dear) (Carchedi & Roberts, Citation2021).
2. These balance-of-payments figures for Chinese OFDI differ (not by much) from those published in the MOFCOM series published in the Statistical Bulletins of Chinese Outward Foreign Investment.
3. In 2021 the Chinese government demanded that six private Chinese mining firms stop work and leave the Democratic Republic of Congo after they ignored local government demands to suspend operations due to illegal mining and destruction of the environment (Nyabiage, 2021).
4. The crisis initially erupted in Thailand and quickly spread to the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea as well as a number of smaller economies.
5. A swap is a sale of a specified amount of domestic currency for foreign currency at the prevailing spot exchange rate, and a commitment to buy it back at the same rate at a specified future date (plus interest). Swaps were used, first, to manage exchange rates, and, since 1998, to deal with financial instability by addressing insufficient liquidity (in particular US dollar liquidity) to meet bank and bank customer commitments.
6. The 15-country RCEP agreement integrated existing trade agreements, further reduced tariffs, harmonised agreements relating to rules of origin to facilitate manufacturing relocation and supply chain integration, and increased market access in an area of relatively rapid growth, accounting for nearly one-third of the world population, output and trade. In contrast to many trade agreements, the RCEP does not significantly address investment and employment regulation, environmental standards, IP rights, state subsidies, and public procurement, although China has recently expressed an interest in joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) that does.
7. Deficits were recorded in larger Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries until 1998 and then surpluses with greater volatility for small countries such as Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam up to the North Atlantic financial crisis.
8. In 1997 a Japanese proposal for a US$100 billion Asian Monetary Fund (AMF) was designed to serve as a (supplementary) regional financial safety net independent of the US and the IMF for the Asian region. When this proposal failed due to US opposition and regional concern about Japan’s imperial past, Japan adopted the New Miyazawa Initiative (US$30 billion to meet short- and long-term capital needs) (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Citation2000). In 2000 the CMI was established by ASEAN countries plus Japan, South Korea and China (ASEAN plus 3). The CMI was an ASEAN currency swap arrangement plus a series of bilateral swap arrangements with the three larger economies designed to address balance-of-payments difficulties and short-term liquidity problems in a world of volatile liberalised finance. In 2007 the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM) was designed to merge bilateral arrangements. In 2012 the scheme was doubled in size. To date these schemes have been limited by geopolitical considerations and their results have proved modest for two reasons: the relatively small volume of resources mobilised; and IMF conditionality and surveillance introduced to ‘appease the US and the IMF and … use the IMF as a foil against the dominance of a regional power like Japan’ (Chandrasekhar, Citation2021), though it may serve to ensure repayment. Accordingly when the Western financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic struck, countries in need of help relied not on the CMI/CMIM but on existing multilateral institutions such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB), World Bank and IMF or on bilateral dollar and regional currency liquidity arrangements with the US (in the case of Japan, South Korea and Singapore) and with Japan and China (Chandrasekhar, Citation2021).
9. To compete with the BRI in late 2021 the EU launched a €300 billion (US$339 billion) connectivity initiative called the Global Gateway (digital, energy and transport as well as health, education and research systems) following the US-led G7 US$40 trillion (by 2035) Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative to seize the moral high ground in terms of ‘values’ and ‘standards’. In the words of the EU: ‘We will support smart investments in quality infrastructure respecting the highest social and environmental standards, in line with the EU’s democratic values and international norms and standards.’ The erosion of the governance credentials of Western countries and their economic stagnation undermine the credibility of these initiatives, as does the near invisibility of a 2018 €300 billion international transport, energy and digital infrastructure plan (GT Staff Reporters, 2021).
10. China has provided the new Taliban government with US$31 million of humanitarian assistance, and has emerged as one of Afghanistan’s main trade partners. China can provide infrastructure and industrial investment and open up untapped deposits of lithium, iron, copper and cobalt, while infrastructure links from Peshawar via Kabul to the Middle East would open up trade routes.
11. The mission is ‘a global community of shared future for humankind’, underlying principles include the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, the underlying guideline is ‘the greater good and shared interests, with higher priority given the former’, the focus is on South–South cooperation, the major platform is the BRI, and the goal is to help ‘other developing countries to pursue the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, jointly address ‘global humanitarian challenges’ and support ‘endogenous growth’. The White Paper calls for a strengthening of ‘international exchanges and tripartite cooperation’ and improved management rules, regulation and procedures.
12. In the aftermath of the financial crisis the Governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan, argued that ‘the desirable goal of reforming the international monetary system . . . is to create an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations’ Zhou (2009).
13. Dreher et al. (Citation2022) argue that China does not provide more aid or credit to natural resource-rich countries, and that its distinctive use of debt rather than aid to finance expensive infrastructure projects and its non-interference principles (which differ from the practices of Western creditors) create new opportunities for developing countries to achieve rapid socio-economic gains, but at the expense of major governance risks (such as the dangers of ‘corruption’ and ‘autocracy’ one-sidedly emphasised in representations of ‘Western values’).
14. World Bank data include public and publicly guaranteed debt and lending to the private sector that is not publicly guaranteed. Some countries exclude SOE debt that is not publicly guaranteed. These figures are not commitments nor do they include non-disbursed sums.