ABSTRACT
China began implementing a strategic policy of “opening up to the outside” in 1979. In the thirty years that followed, the country absorbed more than USD 800 billion of foreign direct investment. Since 1993, the country has consistently attracted more foreign direct investment than any other country on the globe. Over the same thirty-year period, China’s exports have increased by 124 times, and its standing in the global trading system has gone from thirty-first to second. The composition of traded goods has changed considerably in the process, with manufactured goods going from 46 percent of exports to 95 percent, making China the world’s leading competitor in low-cost manufactures. From being a country that lacked foreign exchange, China has in one massive leap become the world’s largest holder of foreign exchange reserves. There is little doubt that China has been successful in opening up to the outside, which has led to its being referred to by the World Bank as one of the few “winners” among developing countries in the course of economic globalization.
