The Merchants of Shanghai, the Mandarins of Beijing: Economic Interdependence in Chinese Foreign Policy

초록

China is a rising power whose very rise presents threats to international stability. Economic interdependence has been singled out a way to get out of the“Thucydides Trap.” However, the optimism disregards the other aspect ofeconomic interdependence, which is asymmetric interdependence and vulnerability. For over a decade, China has been wielding its stick of economicinterdependence in order to pursue its interests rather than been restrainedby concerns for opportunity costs from ruptured trade. Beijing puts pressuresupon Seoul and Tokyo. China would also likely use its financial leverage todo so against the United States. Under the current circumstances, a “balanceof financial terror” seems to prevail, but the recent crisis in the U.S. financialsystem and the consequential recessions in the American product marketsdecreased the level of economic interdependence between the two. Therefore, China will be less restrained by the “balance of financial terror”and more likely to wield its power of asymmetric interdependence evenagainst the United States. In order to prevent such economic duels betweentwo great powers, the world trade system should be maintained liberal andopen, while economic interdependence is to be kept mutual and symmetricrather than asymmetric.

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