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Essay on The Great Big World and China

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The Great Big World and China

Since its inception, the Chinese people and leaders have referred to their homelands as the ‘Middle Kingdom.’ This name reflects the long-held belief that China is the center of the world. For thousands of years, Chinese foreign relations consisted of subjugating countries that were unable to stand up to the powerful Chinese military and walling themselves off from empires which threatened the control the various regimes had over the economic and cultural lives of the people of the Middle Kingdom. With the growing power of the Western nations, these solutions became less and less tenable. The Chinese empire found itself at the mercy of the British and saw its borders forced open and its peoples exposed to …show more content…

(Garrett, 398) These statistics indicate both that China is seen as an economically stable, profitable country and that China’s economic growth must be noticeably boosted by all that foreign investment. Increasing economic ties between China and other countries has resulted in a few other economic boons for the country. One of these benefits is the ‘hundreds of thousands’ of students that China exports to reap the economic rewards of having an increasing number of educated workers and possible technological innovations learned abroad. (Economy, 12) As appealing as these gains may be, China has had to balance the ups of globalization with the increasing risks brought on by interconnected trade and finance. As its productive capacity and investment opportunities increased, the country became increasingly dependant on exports and foreign run enterprises. In fact, “Nearly 40% of China's gross domestic product (GDP) is based on exports and more than 50% of those exports are generated by foreign companies operating in China.” (Garrett, 398) Garrett furthers that any reversal of China’s current state, either through decreased demand for Chinese exports or through Chinese crackdowns on foreign owned businesses, would devastate the national economy and destabilize the government. China has become dependant on foreign trade and continued investment in Chinese industries. It comes as no surprise that it has adjusted its governmental policies to be more appealing for investors

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