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 and scrupulous rule-abider of the international economic and financial architectures forged by the West, which until recently has consistently championed the economic benefits of globalisation.

China's conduct in these international organisations has been exemplary. It has acted invariably like a "responsible stakeholder" rather than a disruptor; it has not sought to break, or revise, any codified rule, except to demand (rather unsuccessfully) for more voting rights commensurate with its recent status of being the world's second-largest economy. Conversely, none of these institutions have accused China as a spoiler. For examples, both the IMF and BIS argue that the renminbi is not undervalued; while the ADB and the World Bank praise China's financial contributions. In its biannual Trade Policy Review of China, the WTO repeatedly commends China's reform and market-opening measures.