Neoliberalism ‘with Chinese Characteristics’

bene

fited from the Chinese demand for earth-moving equipment

(Caterpillar) and turbines (GE). Asian exports to China have also

grown at startling rates. China is now the primary export destin-

ation for South Korea and rivals the US in Japan’s export market.

The rapidity of the reorientation of trade relations is best illus-

trated by the case of Taiwan. China overtook the US as the prime

destination of Taiwanese exports (mainly of intermediate manu-

facturing goods) in 2001, but by the end of 2004 Taiwan was

exporting twice as much to China as to the US.

39

China e

ffectively dominates the whole of East and South-East

Asia as a regional hegemon with enormous global in

fluence. It is

not above reasserting its imperial traditions in the region and

beyond. When confronted by Argentina’s worries about cheap

Chinese imports destroying the vestiges of its indigenous textile,

shoe, and leather industries that began to revive in 2004, the

Chinese advice was simply to let such industries die and concen-

trate on being a raw material and agricultural commodity producer

for the booming China market. It was not lost on the Argentines

that this was exactly how Britain had approached its Indian empire

in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the massive infrastruc-

tural investments under way in China have entrained much of the

global economy. Conversely, China’s slower growth in 2004 has

been

roiling commodity and 

financial markets everywhere. Nickel prices have

plunged from 15-year highs, copper has tumbled from 8-year highs. The

currencies of commodity-driven economies like Australia, Canada and

New Zealand have also su

ffered. And markets in Asia’s other export-

driven economies have trembled amid concern that China might buy

fewer semiconductors from Taiwan and fewer steel rods from South

Korea as well as less Thai rubber, Vietnamese rice and Malaysian tin.

40

As invariably happens with the dynamics of successful capital

accumulation, there comes a point at which internally accumulated

surpluses require external outlets. One path has been to fund the

US debt and thereby keep the market for Chinese products buoy-

ant while keeping the yuan conveniently pegged to the value of the

dollar. But Chinese trading companies have long been active glob-

ally, and they expanded their scope and range markedly from the

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