Samir Amin in Beijing: delving into China’s delinking policy

ABSTRACT

According to the neoliberal narratives, opening up to the world system has deformed the structure of the Chinese economy, thereby passively serving the needs of the centre. In his works, Samir Amin offers the theoretical basis to demystify such narratives. However, he only cursorily analysed the specific policies through which China has achieved the goal of subordinating the domestic market to the logic of internal development. This article attempts to fill this gap by investigating the strategy adopted by the Chinese authorities, which allowed the country to integrate itself into global relations without abandoning its strategy of delinking from imperialism.

RÉSUMÉ

Selon les discours néolibéraux, l’ouverture au système mondial a déformé la structure de l’économie chinoise, servant ainsi passivement les besoins du centre. Dans ses travaux, Samir Amin offre la base théorique pour démystifier cette narrative. Il analyse cependant de manière plutôt sommaire les politiques spécifiques par lesquelles la Chine a atteint l’objectif de subordonner le marché domestique à la logique du développement intérieur. Cet article tente de combler cette lacune en étudiant la stratégie adoptée par les autorités chinoises, qui a permis au pays de s’intégrer dans les relations mondiales sans abandonner sa stratégie de déconnexion avec l’impérialisme.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• socialist development
• delinking

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Chine
• développement socialiste
• déconnexion

Acknowledgements

We are indebted to Leonardo Bargigli for the discussions and ideas that made this article possible. We are also grateful to the referees for their insightful comments. A special thanks to Clare Smedley for the outstanding production work. Any shortcomings or errors are ours.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 We ignore depreciation of capital used in export production.

2 This is in line with the structuralist school (see Cimoli and Katz 2003; Kaplinsky and Santos-Paulino 2006).

3 The rates of profit are calculated by dividing the total profits of private-owned and state-owned industrial enterprises by the original value of their respective fixed assets.

4 The values for ECI were retrieved from the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC n.d.) originally developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Francesco Macheda

Francesco Macheda is an associate professor in political economy at Bifröst University, Iceland. He holds a PhD in analysis of socio-economic transformations from the Marche Polytechnic University, Italy. His main research interests include Marxist political economy, the interaction between economic theory and ideology, and economic growth and development.

Roberto Nadalini

Roberto Nadalini received his MA in political sciences from the University of Bologna, Italy. He currently works at a non-profit organisation promoting the integration of immigrants and people at disadvantage in Modena. In addition, he is currently researching economic disparities at a global level, and he also has a long-standing interest in the history of economic thought.