Litmus test awaits China's 'pro-globalisation' team

SINCE 1979 when China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping had made the world-transforming decision to abandon once and for all the Maoist semi-autarkic model of self-reliant development and pursue an "Open Door" policy, Beijing's geoeconomic goal has remained remarkably consistent, namely, to modernise China's backward economy and catch up with the developed world by integrating the country with the capitalist global economic order, which was created at Bretton Woods immediately after the last world war.

By joining all the major multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), Bank for International Settlements (BIS), World Trade Organization (WTO), etc, Beijing has demonstrated that it is a conscientious…