China's Move towards a Global Economic Core in the Twenty-first Century?: Prospects, Constraints, Consequences

• Published in: Review - Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations Historical Systems, and Civilizations, 2013-01, Vol.36 (3-4), p.351-385
• Main Author: Komlosy, Andrea
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0147-9032; 2327-445X

After declaring "Reform and Opening" in 1978, the Chinese export economy entered the global commodity chains by fulfilling low skill and low cost contract manufacturing for global buyers. This article examines the specific conditions allowing China to overcome the peripheral status of low-end manufacture to become a leading economic center of the world economy. Size, cultural heritage, labor regime, work ethic, and political system are among the factors which explain why and how dependency could be transformed into the position of a global competitor, taking control over global communication and production lines. This article also examines consequences of the success story. Catching up in the world economy goes hand in hand with social and regional polarization within the country, as well as with a new international dominance. Neighbors become outsourcing locations and suppliers of raw materials, international relations help to secure commodity flows; China begins to demonstrate military presence. In the case of China, economic core formation is inseparably linked to the question of global hegemony. Does the rise of a new global core, promoting new alliances in the Global South, represent the emergence of a multi-polar world? Or will we rather face a hegemonic shift, China aiming to take over U.S.-hegemony? The Chinese case offers a good occasion to re-evaluate core and periphery as analytical tools. It shows that the categories undergo change and redefinition; that history, size, political power, and cultural features are as decisive for economic performance as purely economic features. And that changing positions of one great power in the world economy, do have consequences in intra and interstate relations, rendering core and periphery relational, entangled categories.