Introduction

This chapter analyzes economic development, foreign direct investment, international trade and Scientific & Technological development, and presents the hidden issues behind prosperous development. It argues that China’s economic development depends on labor, capital and resource intensity, and exports, and that the global value chains is a useful framework to decipher the reasons for China’s predominantly lower value-added functions. Since China was only beginning to participate in globalization at that stage, it had limited impact on the world economy. On January 18, 2016, in a campaign speech at Virginia’s Liberty University, Donald Trump, Republican Presidential candidate, tangentially promised that he would force Apple to manufacture its hardware in the United States instead of looking to overseas labor. China’s gross domestic expenditure on research and development as a percentage of gross domestic product reached 2.05 percent in 2014. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.