China, the future world power?

Résumé du document

This paper examines whether China will emerge as a dominant regional power, or even a world power, in the twenty-first century. The growth of China for twenty years is really impressive. Since 1982, the most populated country of the world has multiplied its GDP by seven. This growth is explained mainly by the openness of its economy, the liberalization of market, the low cost of labour force, the foreign investments. But this rapid growth involves numerous risks. Therefore, it is difficult to predict the success of China in the future. Indeed we can not be sure that the euphoria of foreign investments will continue for China. Numerous countries are becoming real competitors as for instance India or Brazil.

Extraits

[...] How to explain this success? According Benjamin Lowe in his article “China, the world's next superpower”, the Chinese have focused on their economy as their way of becoming a regional and global superpower since the early 1980s. Within the past decade, China has taken significant steps to become the regional economic superpower, exceeding those of Japan and South Korea. The main reason for Chinese ascendancy is the Asian Economic Crisis in 1997. It drastically affected the markets of South Korea and Japan, which took massive hits, whereas China went through the whole Crisis without being affected. [...]

[...] For example, the consumption of electricity increases by 10% per year. Moreover, China uses mainly coal of resources of energy), which causes problem of pollution. D. The dictatorial policy of government Although the communism policy has completely changed at the economic level, the party always applies a dictatorial policy, based on the control and the repression. The state controls everything: information, law and justice, relation with other countries When we look the way the government managed SARS crisis or the way it punishes a criminal, and its arms race, it is still difficult to trust the Chinese government. [...]

[...] China is already the sixth world economic power. Since 2002, it's the fourth exporting country and the sixth importing country in the world. In 2003, its exports increased by 35% and its imports by 40%. The foreign investors are more and more involved in the economic development of the country. They are encouraged by an un-flagged economic growth and by a growing political freedom. China is one of the countries that receive the largest foreign direct investments. The two thirds of investments come from Asian countries and particularly from Hong Kong. [...]

[...] With a growth without concurrence, the purchasing power of Chinese increases by 10% per year. The habits of consumption westernize rapidly. For the first time, over one million of cars were sold in 2002. For Volkswagen, China represents the biggest market after Germany. The Chinese want to have a mobile, a computer, a car, cosmetics, fast- foods. However, the standard of living is still very low: 946 euros per year and per inhabitant. But of inhabitants have a standard living like that of Europeans. [...]

[...] Today, its production is the fourth in the world. The industrial sector is more and more complete and developed with the new technologies of laptops of cameras are produced in China for instance. China possesses the largest industrial labour force in the world, with about 80 million workers. Every year million workers enter the labour market. Moreover, the wage per hour in the manufacturing sector is one of the lowest in the world, that is to say 0.62 $ US. [...]