Extra credit blog / China and Globalization / Choi sieon

 "Is globalization good for China? And is China good for globalization?"

First, when asked if globalization is good for China, we need to go back to 1979. When Chinese President Deng Xiaoping returned from a visit to the United States, he said, "All you need to do is catch mice, whether they are black cats or white cats." (In Korea, we said '흑묘백묘론'(white or black cat theory)). This means that regardless of communism or capitalism, it is only necessary to make it so that the people can live well.

In the end, Deng Xiaoping progressed China's first globalization through a pragmatic reform and opening up policy.

As diplomatic relations between the United States and China recovered, reform and opening up to accept foreign capital began, and huge foreign capital flowed in as China's cheap labor and rent served as advantages. In 2001, joining the WTO was able to lower tariffs and trade barriers, and China's globalization accelerated further.

What effect would this have had. First of all, the problem of hunger poverty was serious due to the transfer of reform and opening policies, Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward movement, and the Cultural Revolution. It is said that it was a time when about 50 million Chinese died of starvation and the economy crashed.

However, after globalization, the poverty rate dropped so sharply that the World Bank estimated that more than 800 million Chinese people were freed from poverty. As this standard of living increased, the level of education could also surge. China has achieved economic growth through globalization. 

What about the present. Due to COVID19, China has been cut off from the rest of the world and isolated. But while people's movement has decreased, paradoxically, trade has produced positive results. Trade movement active during isolation, exports up 30% in 2021. It is up 7 percent in 2022. Rather, after the suspension of zero-COVID19, export competitiveness has declined due to the rise in the exchange rate of the Yuan. 

As a result, it is true that globalization has made the whole rich when looking at China as a whole. Globalization has had a positive effect on China.

However, there were also social contradictions brought about by reform and opening up for globalization. As multinational private companies were created, corruption of bureaucrats, unprecedented inflation, and unemployment also occurred simultaneously. In the process, the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests also appeared. It can be seen as a limitation of economic globalization developed in dictatorship. Among them, the biggest problem was the gap between the rich and the poor. The problem of poor farmers and workers continues to this day.

As such, globalization has had a lot of positive effects on China, but the negative effects cannot be overlooked.

Then, did China have a positive impact on globalization? China has had a significant impact on the global economy and international politics as it has emerged as a central country for globalization. China's economic growth is one of the fastest and largest in the modern world. This growth has made China's domestic market huge and has given it a significant position in the global market. China has become an important supplier in various industries, establishing itself as a major producer of global manufacturing. In this process, China increased trade with other countries and increased interdependence in the global economy. Many companies produce and sell products in the Chinese market, and China's exports and imports account for a large part of global economic activity.

But China's globalization can be controversial for some. China's labor costs are low and production capacity is high, so some industries have been transferred from other countries. This has affected employment conditions in some countries, and some industries have stagnated due to China's competitiveness. Despite China's open market policy, China's entry into the market remains difficult. Companies follow various regulations and procedures to enter the Chinese market, and there are also regional restrictions. China represents a major aspect of globalization, and has a great influence on the global economy and international politics, but this does not have only positive effects. Therefore, China's globalization is at the center of controversy in many ways.