China, America, and the Fracturing of the Global Trading System

Lancement du livre de M. Paul BLUSTEIN, journaliste et auteur, Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)

« History was heralded when China joined the WTO in 2001, for good reason: the world’s most populous nation was entering the rules-based system that has long governed international commerce. But the full ramifications of that event are only now becoming apparent, as the Chinese economic juggernaut evolved in profoundly troublesome ways. Journalist and CIGI Senior Fellow, Paul Blustein, chronicles the contentious process resulting in China’s WTO membership and the transformative changes that followed, both good and bad – for China, for its trading partners and for the global trading system as a whole. Schism recounts how China opened its markets and underwent far-reaching reforms that fuelled its economic takeoff, but shifted to a model of heavy state intervention that is fundamentally at odds with the principles guiding other major economies. Events took a potentially catastrophic turn in 2018 when the Trump administration initiated a trade war with Beijing. Regardless of how that confrontation unfolds, the foundations of the rules-based trading system have been fractured. And the world will be grappling for decades with the challenges posed by China Inc. »