A prominent authority on China’s Belt and Road Initiative reveals the global risks lurking within Beijing’s project of the century China’s Belt and Road Initiative is the world’s most ambitious and misunderstood geoeconomic vision. To carry out President Xi Jinping’s flagship foreign-policy effort, China promises to spend over one trillion dollars for new ports, railways, fiber-optic cables, power plants, and other connections. The plan touches more than one hundred and thirty countries and has expanded into the Arctic, cyberspace, and even outer space. Beijing says that it is promoting global development, but Washington warns that it is charting a path to global dominance. Taking readers on a journey to China’s projects in Asia, Europe, and Africa, Jonathan E. Hillman reveals how this grand vision is unfolding. As China pushes beyond its borders and deep into dangerous territory, it is repeating the mistakes of the great powers that came before it, Hillman argues. If China succeeds, it will remake the world and place itself at the center of everything. But Xi may be overreaching: all roads do not yet lead to Beijing.

Prior to the initiation of economic reforms and trade liberalization 36 years ago, China maintained policies that kept the economy very poor, stagnant, centrally-controlled, vastly inefficient, and relatively isolated from the global economy. Since opening up to foreign trade and investment and implementing free market reforms in 1979, China has been among the world's fastest-growing economies, with real annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaging nearly 10% through 2016. In recent years, China has emerged as a major global economic power. It is now the world's largest economy (on a purchasing power parity basis), manufacturer, merchandise trader, and holder of foreign exchange reserves.The global economic crisis that began in 2008 greatly affected China's economy. China's exports, imports, and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows declined, GDP growth slowed, and millions of Chinese workers reportedly lost their jobs. The Chinese government responded by implementing a $586 billion economic stimulus package and loosening monetary policies to increase bank lending. Such policies enabled China to effectively weather the effects of the sharp global fall in demand for Chinese products, but may have contributed to overcapacity in several industries and increased debt by Chinese firms and local government. China's economy has slowed in recent years. Real GDP growth has slowed in each of the past six years, dropping from 10.6% in 2010 to 6.7% in 2016, and is projected to slow to 5.7% by 2022.The Chinese government has attempted to steer the economy to a "new normal" of slower, but more stable and sustainable, economic growth. Yet, concerns have deepened in recent years over the health of the Chinese economy. On August 11, 2015, the Chinese government announced that the daily reference rate of the renminbi (RMB) would become more "market-oriented." Over the next three days, the RMB depreciated against the dollar and led to charges that China's goal was to boost exports to help stimulate the economy (which some suspect is in worse shape than indicated by official Chinese economic statistics). Concerns over the state of the Chinese economy appear to have often contributed to volatility in global stock indexes in recent years.The ability of China to maintain a rapidly growing economy in the long run will likely depend largely on the ability of the Chinese government to implement comprehensive economic reforms that more quickly hasten China's transition to a free market economy; rebalance the Chinese economy by making consumer demand, rather than exporting and fixed investment, the main engine of economic growth; boost productivity and innovation; address growing income disparities; and enhance environmental protection. The Chinese government has acknowledged that its current economic growth model needs to be altered and has announced several initiatives to address various economic challenges. In November 2013, the Communist Party of China held the Third Plenum of its 18th Party Congress, which outlined a number of broad policy reforms to boost competition and economic efficiency. For example, the communique stated that the market would now play a "decisive" role in allocating resources in the economy. At the same time, however, the communique emphasized the continued important role of the state sector in China's economy. In addition, many foreign firms have complained that the business climate in China has worsened in recent years. Thus, it remains unclear how committed the Chinese government is to implementing new comprehensive economic reforms.China's economic rise has significant implications for the United States and hence is of major interest to Congress. This report provides background on China's economic rise; describes its current economic structure; identifies the challenges China faces to maintain economic growth; and discusses the challenges, opportunities, and implications of China's economic rise.

The foreign policy of the People's Republic of China has been dominated in recent decades by the problems of dealing with the other major powers in East Asia. Although many ideological, political, and economic aims have shaped particular Chinese policies, Peking's dominant concern has been national security. Since the late 1960s, its leaders have viewed the Soviet Union as the primary threat to China and have pursued a distinctive, Maoist, balance-of-power strategy against it. China's post-Mao leaders continue to give priority to strategic considerations and the problems of relations with the other major powers. It cannot be assumed, however, that they will simply continue past policies. The recent changes both within China and in the broad pattern of international relations in East Asia have created a new situation. In this study, A. Doak Barnett analyzes in detail China's bilateral relations with the Soviet Union, Japan, and the United States. He also examines the changing nature of the four-power relationship in East Asia. On this basis, he discusses possible future trends in Chinese policy and the prospects for achieving a more stable regional equilibrium.

This book shows how international trade was a key part of the classic Western policy of containment towards the Soviet Union in the Cold War in the late 1970s. Trade and containment may summarise the new relation that communist China moulded with the capitalistic West in the late 1970s. Ideology had become less important and a rapprochement between the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and the Western powers over trade, with the purpose of isolating and weakening the common Russian rival, was practically unavoidable. Within a relatively short span of time the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific area had been reversed. Simply put, Beijing’s market was too big to be ignored and the Atlantic allies collaborated, sometimes even competing with each other, to allow China access to the centres of world finance. However, the Western powers had not realised that Beijing would never pursue alignment with them. On the contrary, the increased trading and financial linkage with capitalistic countries gave China room to manoeuvre, enabling it to play the Western states off against each other. This book will be of much interest to students of Cold War Studies, Chinese history, foreign policy and international relations.