Nature of Chinese Economic Power
The growth of Chinese economy in East Asia is already having a profound effect both on the developmental trajectories of regional states and structure of the regional political economy. Although, China's significance is clear, the daunting challenge is whether this significance equates to the present power. It calls for a critical evaluation and examination of the benefits and costs of engaging Chinese economic power against the disadvantages of not engaging it. Against this backdrop, this paper briefly elaborates the nature of the Chinese economic power and critiques the benefits and costs of containing or engaging this power in this era of globalization.
The global economy is a multi-faceted and complex system as several big developing states destined for economic power but a weak system of finance which resulted to their downfall. Although, China's growth dazzles the world, there are some wastes of money that are always not within the knowledge of the public. For instance, profits from captive savings and export trade are sometimes invested recklessly. The most essential thing to be noted in the examination of the nature of Chinese economic power is the extent to which this economic growth of the Chinese influences the world's economic order. It is not under contention that the Chinese economic growth already impacts significantly of the global economy at large. Despite this, there is increasing demand for agricultural goods because of the population growth, changing dietary preferences, urbanization, and declining yields caused by environmental degradation and this great impact on the global prices. To this extent, China will control the world's agricultural prices as its agricultural prices will the global agricultural prices in the long run (Breslin 136).
In terms of global political economy, China joined the importation of oil in 1993 and overtook Japan as a net importer of oil and came second after United States of America in the oil importers' league table in 2003. This increase of demand for oil in China alone accounts for 40% of the increase in oil demand between 2001 and 2004 globally, and it was a primary cause in the increase in the oil prices during that period. It means that, in the long run, the demand for oil as well as other raw materials will be more significant as the competition over energy resources access becoming a threat to the stability of East Asia. Similarly, the demand for other resources and materials increased and greatly impacted the prices of key commodities as well as their distribution. For instance, the world prices of steel in 2004 rose dramatically primarily because of the increase imports from China. Moreover, the decision to retain coke for local use in the steel industry and cut its exports resulted to increase in the price of coke. However, while most of these analyses point to the significance and importance of Chinese economic growth in the political economy globally, it is unclear whether there is a strong correlation between this power and the significance (Breslin 137).
Critique on Benefits and Costs of Engaging Chinese Economic Power
China's economy is one that is emerging and in transition as it ascends into engineering, manufacturing, and services world. The world's policy towards China is the broad engagement approach as several countries such as United Kingdom takes it as the contemporary China policies. This has consequently resulted to five comprehensive justifications in the defense of China's engagement. These points justify the need of pressing China hard to undertake domestic political reforms domestic political reforms. First is the cultural argument which suggests that China is distinct and ought to be judged on a standard of governance and government which is completely different. This is a fallacy because despite having one of the largest populations globally, China cannot be said to be a poor developing country. This means that it is not necessary that socio-economic rights take priority over political rights. To the most basic, China should only maintain stability and provide basic standards of living to its citizens. Second is the argument that instead of weakening authoritarian leadership in China, megaphone diplomacy as well as grand gestures will strengthen it. Further, that socialism was replaced by nationalism as the de facto ideology for legitimization and that containment strategies will give it an opportunity to match to the nationalist constituency. Thus, Western countries are attempting to be aggressive with the view of stopping China from developing as well as attaining its place in the world. This is not a just issue of Western manipulation of popular opinion because for a longer period, the Chinese leadership has been struggling to limit common anti-western nationalism (Breslin 131).
The third issue relates to the argument the growing Chinese economy implies that it is an essential opportunity which China cannot afford to miss. However, it is essential to note that part of the functions of diplomacy is to promote commercial opportunities and national economic interests that come with the rise of China. It is wrong for any government to do what they wish under the guise of promoting domestic, commercial interest. In conclusion, it is not right to argue that engaging China is the best means of gradually promoting positive social and political changes in China as it is a struggle that should not be influenced by global economic factors (Breslin 132).
Work Cited
Breslin, Shaun. China and the Global Political Economy. , 2013. Print.
