Baltic Business Research

“The Game Changer – Coping with China’s Foreign Policy Revolution”.
Economy, Elizabeth C. In: Foreign Affairs. December 2010.

My most interesting reading in the past weeks was an article in the well-known journal Foreign Affairs, written by Elizabeth Economy (yes, that’s her name; I’ve even seen her on television as a very skilled China expert ). Economy focuses on the long-term trend that shows that modern China’s leaders so far have been concentrating their strategic efforts on maintaining high economic growth and – by achieving this – on political stability. This orientation should be continued. But: Until recently, the Chinese political leadership was not really interested in shaping global strategies. The domestic design dominated completely.

This reluctant international attitude, however,  is now mature for a change, according to Elizabeth Economy. She argues in her article that China now has arrived at a stage where it can launch a “go-out strategy” with the objective to “remake global norms and institutions”. China wants to influence or shape the international context in which it wants to make business. The article tells us that China will be trying to use international institutions to promote its domestic standards as global standards.

Thus, Economy predicts that the contents of Chinese economic policy and international policy will change dramatically in the forthcoming 10-20 years. It can be repeated that two main objectives, however, should be kept alive for quite some time, according to the author: good economy growth and political stability.    

I do share the opinion that China will play a much more active political role in global politics. And I conclude that such a development does not imply an automatic continuation of the economic trends we have seen in the past two decades. This time is different – and flexible China strategies will be needed in the political and corporate headquarters in our part of the world.