Researching China’s Development and Globalization in an Era of US-China Tensions

Abstract

The role that China is perceived to present for the global economy—much less global security—has changed remarkably since China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001. During the height of neoliberalism and third-wave democracies, China appeared more open to foreign capital than the developmental states of East Asia, which had restricted foreign direct investment (FDI) in favor of domestic industrialization during a comparable stage of economic development. Through the first 15 years of China’s WTO membership, many in academia and the policy world depicted a modernizing China undergoing market transition, in parallel to Eastern European countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union.