7. The Rise of China and the Adjustment of the International Order—A Case Study of China’s Participation in the Multilateral Trading System

Abstract

China surpassed Germany and became the world’s largest exporter in 2009. One year later, China replaced japan in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), and it became the world’s second largest economy, only behind the United States. What influences will China’s rise produce on the global economic order and the global governance structure? How will other countries adapt themselves to such changes and what policies should China adopt? Those are the key questions of this chapter. With an analytical framework generally based on the realistic international theory and specifically based on “the rise of a power and restructuring in international relations,” the chapter takes China’s participation into the world’s multilateral trading systems as an example to analyze and study these questions. Keywords:China; Germany; global economic order; global governance structure; gross domestic product (GDP); realistic international theory; United States; world’s multilateral trading systems