The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World-Economy: Exploring Historical Possibilities in the 21st Century

Abstract

China's rising importance in the capitalist world- economy raises questions of world-historic significance. How is China's internal social structure likely to evolve as China assumes different positions in the existing world system? Will China's cur- rent regime of accumulation survive the potential pressures aris- ing out of the transformation? How will other peripheral and semi-peripheral states be affected? Can the reemerging China- centered civilization provide solutions to the problems left be- hind by U. S. hegemony? If not, how will the rise of China affect the underlying dynamics of the existing world system? The exist- ing world system may have entered into a structural crisis. Can the system survive the rise of China? In the age of transition, in- stead of expecting the same pattern of systemic dynamics with which we have become familiar, it may be more appropriate to expect bifurcation, chaos, transformations, and the turns and tricks of history.