I found this article in the Financial Times quite interesting:

Coming out of the crisis, China wants to forge a new phase of globalisation where many of the roads – financial, commercial and perhaps eventually political – converge on Beijing.  China is not seeking a rupture with the international economic system (although some foreign companies are fearful of a technology grab). But it is looking to mould more of the rules, institutions and economic relationships that are at the core of the global economy. It is trying to forge post-American globalisation.

In recent years, a range of important countries have found that China rather than the US is their principal trading partner, from neighbouring Japan and South Korea to commodity-rich Australia and Brazil. At times over the past year, Chinese imports of oil from Saudi Arabia have exceeded Riyadh’s shipments to the US.

With the help of its considerable financial firepower, China is deepening these links. Beijing is establishing trade relationships that allow it to sell not just clothing and consumer products but more sophisticated goods such as power equipment. Its banks are helping to expand infrastructure and energy supplies in other developing countries in ways that will accelerate their growth, boost two-way trade and bind them closer to the Chinese economy. Beijing is also looking to establish a role for its currency in the international monetary system, in part at the expense of the dollar.

“China will boost its role at the centre of a growing web of economic and financial connections. These links are gradually, but inexorably, integrating east Asia,” says Evan Feigenbaum, head of the Asia practice at Eurasia, a consultancy. “China will continue to seek to reshape the region’s trade and investment architecture, largely on a pan-Asian basis and without the US.” It is not just Asia: Africa, Latin America and the Middle East are all being touched by China’s global push.

   I think the challenge for people in this country and around the world will be to differentiate between what the Chinese government decides is in the best interests of China versus what is in the best interests of the large majority of people in China–it won’t always be the same. As long as China provides massive ranks of cheap labor, it will serve the global corporations interested in doing business there.