Commentary

30 years on - nation no longer a forbidden place for foreigners

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-12-19 11:10

"China is increasingly incorporated into the world after 30 years of economic reform and opening up, because no one would want to ignore the significance of China, and it will be harder to do so in future.

"Also for the Chinese, we can no longer just close our eyes and shut the door, because we've been so much connected with the rest of the world," he says.

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Numerous Chinese now suddenly feel the pinch of the global economic downturn late this year after the United States, China's second largest trade partner, was hit by the worst financial crisis since the 1920s.

Liang Fengyi's factory of auto parts in Foshan, south China's Guangdong Province, received a notice from General Motors to cut orders by 20 percent just one day after the US government rejected the auto giant's plea for up to US$10 billion to help finance its possible merger with Chrysler in early November.

A similar thing happened to Zhou Xiaoguang, who runs a shop selling home decoration accessories in east China's Yiwu City, a famous wholesaling market.

"Some of my regular clients abroad came eight times a year. But this year they came just four times," Zhou says. "I'm afraid I will lose 20 percent of profits this year."

Their experiences provide unhappy evidence as to how close the ties and interactions between China and the rest of the world have become.

"Over the last 30 years China has changed from pursuing economic autarky to adopting a policy of integration and comparative advantage, from lack of participation in the global economy to interdependence with that economy," says David M. Lampton, director of China Studies at the US's Johns Hopkins University.

"This is the most fundamental and far-reaching change in the relationship between China and the West," he says in an interview with Xinhua via email.

Such a change means that "international actors are increasingly looking to China to play an active role in addressing the problems and fallout of the global economic crisis," says Chris Alden, head of the China in Africa Programme of the South African Institute of International Affairs.

Martyn Davies, executive director of the Center for Chinese Studies at Stellenbosch University of South Africa, says China's development also is evidence that countries are able to reverse their situations and determine their own development trajectories, particularly for many African countries.

"China's increased engagement in Africa offers a new model for foreign power engagement with that continent - one that is not purely donor or only commodity driven, but rather, multifaceted, combining investment, trade and donor models," he says.