ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the Chinese state stands at the crossroads between the pursuit of its selective embrace of globalization and its desire to maintain a developmentalist model of economic growth. The policy towards globalization followed by President Hu Jintao can be viewed as a natural outgrowth of the attempts by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s to move China away from the largely isolationist policies of the late-Mao era. At the same time, modern China’s current approach to globalization is considerably more complex than in the Dengist era, addressing issues far more numerous than solely economic reform. In addressing the challenge of globalization, the Chinese party-state has sought to gain from openness while simultaneously preventing potentially harmful influences from entering the country, a problem reminiscent of Deng’s alleged aphorism about how dif cult it is to open a window without letting in ies. Nevertheless, with the modern Chinese Communist Party (CCP) staking much of its political survival on its ability to provide ongoing and expanded economic benefits to more and more Chinese citizens, the party-state’s approach to globalization must continue to be one of considerable caution.
