Christopher McNally: China's Re-Emergence on the World Scale? Explorations on Sino-Capitalism's Global Impact

Guest Seminar by Christopher McNally on 18 June 2013

On 18 June 2013, Christopher McNally of the East-West Center Honolulu/USA has been at Goethe-University Frankfurt to talk about the implications of China's rise for the global political economy.

Summary:

There is little doubt that China’s reemergence on the international level represents one of the most significant events of the early 21st Century. As China’s political economy gains in importance, its interactions with other major political economies will shape global values, institutions, and policies, thereby restructuring the international political economy. Drawing on theories and concepts in the field of comparative political economy, especially the study of comparative capitalisms, I envisage China’s reemergence as generating Sino-capitalism – a capitalist system that is already global in reach but that differs from other forms of capitalism in important respects. Sino-capitalism relies more on informal business networks than legal codes and transparent rules. It also assigns the Chinese state a leading role in fostering and guiding capitalist accumulation.

Sino-capitalism, ultimately, espouses less trust in free markets and more trust in unitary state rule.

After conceptualizing Sino-capitalism’s domestic political economy, this seminar explores the potential impacts of this new form of capitalism on the global level. Rather than presenting a deterministic argument concerning the future international role of China, I argue that China’s stance and strategy in the international political economy hew quite closely to Sino-capitalism’s hybrid compensatory institutional arrangements on the domestic level: state guidance; flexible and entrepreneurial networks; and global integration.

Sino-capitalism therefore represents an emerging system of global capitalism centered on China that is producing a dynamic mix of mutual dependence, symbiosis, competition, and friction with the still dominant Anglo-American model of capitalism.

On Christopher McNally

Biography

Christopher A. McNally is an Associate Professor of Political Economy at Chaminade University and Nonresident Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, USA. His research focuses on comparative capitalisms, especially the nature and logic of China’s capitalist transition. He is also working on a research project that studies the implications of China’s international reemergence on the global order.

He has held fellowships conducting fieldwork and research at the Asia Research Centre in West Australia, the Institute of Asia Pacific Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Washington. He has edited four volumes, including an examination of China’s political economy: China’s Emergent Political Economy – Capitalism in the Dragon’s Lair (Routledge, 2008). He also has authored numerous book chapters, policy analyses, editorials and articles in journals such as Business and Politics, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Comparative Social Research, and World Politics.

Recent Publications

“Sino-Capitalism: China’s Reemergence and the International Political Economy”, World Politics, 64:4 (2012), 741-776.

“The Challenge of Refurbished State Capitalism: Implications for the Global Political Economic Order”, dms – der moderne staat, 6:1 (2013), 33-48.

Christopher's Homepage