Economic statecraft with Chinese characteristics: strange, new, and different, or old wine in new bottles?

Abstract

The term "economic statecraft" is increasingly employed to describe China's use of economic resources to pursue objectives spanning the political, economic, and strategic spheres. One recent study suggests that "China's sophisticated use of economics in its foreign policy is still a fairly recent phenomenon." Yet close scrutiny of how since at least the early 1900s Chinese leaders sought to use economic leverage as a foreign policy instrument suggests that the antecedents of contemporary Chinese economic statecraft date back to the founding of the People's Republic of China and even before. This special issue represents an effort to explore in some depth in what ways post-Cold War Chinese economic statecraft does indeed represent a novel phenomenon, as opposed to the simple continuation of earlier trends; to identify its most important features and follow its evolution over time; and to investigate in detail several specific recent case studies.