ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses how China has confronted the challenges of globalization. A deeper understanding of China's success relative to globalization then entails an analysis of the discursive and institutional methods the state has employed to anchor the many strategies in the population. For China, globalization was also associated with modernity, and thus part of the whole modern national identity envisioned for the country by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Overseas Chinese were the first to discover the cheap, but well-qualified labour power to be found in the new special economic zones. Regional cooperation can be used to protect against some negative aspects of globalization. The official discourse of China's role in globalization is matched by a set of policies aimed at embedding the party-state more solidly in society. Global political ideas and cultural trends have also found their way to the country, not least through new electronic channels of communication such as the Internet.