Abstract

With its huge domestic market, robust outflow of exports and an authoritarian government, China seems a natural candidate as a proponent of global free trade. In fact, tensions already abound as China is criticized for manipulating its exchange rate to promote exports while protecting domestic companies from foreign competition, an accusation that labels China as mercantilist. China, however, has rejected the criticism, instead demonstrating that it has a ‘great power style’ (daguo fengfan) in bilateral free trade agreements (FTA) and in buying foreign products during the 2008–9 global financial crisis. With its economic size surpassing Japan in 2010 to become the world’s second largest economy, China appears to be on its way to becoming the third hegemony in the international system after the Pax Britannica and the Pax Americana.