Читать книгу Financial Cold War. A View of Sino-US Relations from the Financial Markets онлайн

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It is not unreasonable for China's leadership to pursue policies that improve the Chinese people's standard of living. The path that China followed was not substantially different to that followed by Japan and West Germany during their post-WW2 recoveries. In this regard, the CCP has done a pretty good job. As China's prosperity has increased, the government has tightened environmental codes and raised minimum wages. These are hardly the actions of a government that is pursuing a narrowly mercantilist trade agenda. At the same time, as trade and other imbalances grew, China's leadership was not proactive enough in addressing other countries’ concerns. Escalating tensions were exacerbated by the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and its aftermath.

The 2008 GFC was a watershed event in post-WW2 history. Its significance lies not in the crisis itself, which shared a pattern with countless other financial crises, but in its causes and consequences, as well as a major turning point that it marked.