ABSTRACT
This chapter examines China's rapid ascent as an international trader and participant in foreign investment activities, the two most prominent aspects of China's involvement in the world economy, for insight into how the nature of China's economic ties has changed in the past and continues to develop. It focuses on how the pattern of China's economic ties has changed addresses several issues of contemporary scholarly and policy-oriented interest. The chapter explores the evolution of China's trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) ties with a wide variety of actors in the world economy, not only individual countries but also groups such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the BRICS, the European Union (EU), and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In examining China's importance to the EU as a trade partner, the chapter uses extra-EU trade data, which excludes trade among the EU's members in calculating the group's trade with the outside world.
