Globalization from the Perspective of China.

Both globalization and China have caught much attention in international political economy, and China is often portrayed as a main beneficiary of globalization. However, this simplified representation misses out much critical social content. This paper argues that globalization can be understood as a tripartite phenomenon: flexible accumulation, internationalization of the state, and the rise of economic neoliberalism. It partly reflects the efforts of the capital in the industrial core to overcome a new crisis of overaccumulation since the early 1970s. From the perspective of China, globalization has quite different dynamics and implications, which reflects the distinct configuration and evolution of Chinese political economy. The Chinese miracle is indeed a process to reconstitute a large cheap labor force and to institutionalize a new economic order. In Chinese context, flexible accumulation is articulated as a process of reconstituting a large cheap labor force, of participating into the global flexible production network, and of exploiting both domestic and international markets. The internationalization of the state is not so much geared to the need of internationalized capital, but to the reconstitution and institutionalization of the new social relations and economic order within China. Economic neoliberalism provides a critical ideological justification of Chinese reform. All these aspects bear a clear mark of Chinese authoritarian state. The dawn of the third millennium has witnessed a profound crisis in China. As of the time being the future evolutionary path of Chinese political economy is far from clear. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]