Did China cause the credit crisis? China’s accession to the WTO in 2001 set in motion a huge upheaval in the world economy and underpinned a global economic boom. Surging Chinese exports of consumer products brought lower prices to Western consumers and larger profits to multinationals, turning China into the largest financer of the developed world, while massive Chinese buying of commodities promoted strong growth in many commodity-rich but less-developed countries.  

However, China’s emergence also helped create the conditions for the debt excesses which caused the crash of 2008. In hindsight, if financial policymakers had better understood the nature and extent of the shock brought by China to the world economy, more appropriate policies might have been put in place which could have mitigated the crash – or even avoided it.

Meanwhile, the impact of the credit crisis has pushed China from behind America’s shadow into a central position on the world stage.

China and the Credit Crisis: The Emergence of a New World Order (ISBN: 978-0-470-82507-5; John Wiley & Sons) is the first book to examine the important part played by China in the run-up to the crisis and to discuss in detail the implications of China’s sudden elevation to a position of global leadership. Author Giles Chance has lived in China for over 20 years, and is a business professor at the Guanghua Business School at Peking University. A keen observer of market developments and institutional change in China, Chance gives readers an insightful analysis of China’s new role with respect to changes in global governance, the future role of the dollar, and the country’s relations with the United States, Asia and the emerging world.

China, which now depends on worldwide engagement to realize its own development goals, is set to overtake Japan as the world's second largest economy by 2012. But unlike Japan, the country is equipped both by history and national inclination to play a leading role. Increasingly, what happens in China will have global repercussions. It is therefore critical that we understand the new role China will play in the post-crisis world – as a provider of growth to a world deep in recession, and, further into the future, as a central player in international affairs and macroeconomic management. China and the Credit Crisis will be an imperative read for specialists and non-specialists alike, illuminating the global impact of China’s ascent and the future evolution of China itself.

China and the Credit Crisis: The Emergence of a New World Order

Published by John Wiley & Sons

Publication Date: November 25, 2009

US$19.95; Paperback; 228 pp.; ISBN: 978-0-470-82507-5