ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the changes in China’s foreign economic policies, the long-term trends of its foreign trade, its trade relations with the Western world in general and with the US in particular, the role of foreign resources in China’s modernization, and the prospects for China’s foreign trade. China’s foreign economic relations reflect a complex interaction involving foreign policy and relations, internal political developments, and the dictates of economic necessity. In the wake of the Sino-Soviet split, China’s foreign economic policy took a sharp turn, and the doctrine of self-reliance became the new guideline. The ambitious 1976–1985 plan announced in early 1978 proposed forms of economic interaction with Western companies that had once been regarded as unacceptable. After the disruption of the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese economy experienced a new surge of growth and expansion. Some economists predict that China may enter an era in which foreign trade leads growth.
