INTRODUCTION

The rapidly growing of China economically has taken place gradually with its established
development policy which leads the world to a major change and making China one of the
strongest countries by now following the United States.

In brief, the purpose of this report is to scrutinize how the rise of China leads to several
significant matters that embroil the economic, culture, and politics in other countries. Firstly,
the economics would be all concern of threats provided by China, China’s oil quest effects,
and China as the ‘goldmining’ country. Next, for the cultural part, Confucianism, Mandarin,
and the bamboo network would be elaborated. Lastly, China’s global power shifts, conflicts
with other countries, and influence of Sudan crisis on Beijing Olympics would be covered in
details.

1
ECONOMICAL INFLUENCES

A Possible Threat
The rise of China as a global economic power is one of the massive conversion for China to
overtake the rest of the world. This arrival of a great power can be considered as a threat
especially to East Asian countries, Europe, and also the United States. With only two-fifths of
economic size of Japan’s, China has outdone the Japanese and accomplished as the third
largest trading economy in 2004. China’s imports have been gradually increasing in 2000-
2005 from $225 billion to $660 billion. Even though its economy is just a small cantlet of the
United States, China’s economy is still expanding and its economic growth on world trade has
completed about half compared to the United States just after a certain period of time
(Bergsten et al. 2006, 73). It is concluded by the OECD Economic Survey of China that by
2010, China might surpass Germany and United States turning into the greatest exporter
globally. Although China used to supply low-tech goods such as clothing and footwear, but
now they have switched to notebook computers and more advance technology products.
Moreover, engineering graduates in China has also increased in its amount and which leads to
more manufacturing of sophisticated goods. One good example is provided pointing that the
assembly operations of notebook computers is now more on China instead of the previously
in-charged Taiwan (Bergsten et al. 2006, 106). Therefore in 2020, it is reported that China’s
global income would have risen from the previously 4.7% in 2004 to roughly 7.9% and
indicating that this could have most probably infecting more on Japan, Taiwan, and Korea
(Gu, Humphrey and Messner 2008, 274).

Oil Quest to a Relationship

China’s need for an uninterrupted and secure supply of energy resources (oil) has become an
increasingly important strategic element of China’s international relations. Although China
demand most of its oil imports from the Middle East, recently China has spread its oil questing
to countries such as Iran, Sudan, Cuba, Angola, and Kazakhstan (Hennock 2005). This policy
helps to create ties among the nations throughout the world that may serve as the basis for
broader cooperation.

2
The ‘Goldmining’ Territory
Furthermore, China’s wide economic power has attracted investors around the globe to
involve them in ‘goldmining’ ploy. China’s low-wage advantage is most likely to be a source
of comparative advantage in various industries especially those that bear a larger share of
labour costs such as footwear and clothing. Wages in China are much relatively lower than the
wages in United States. The total average labour cost is about $1 per hour for manufacturing
work in the city included benefits or bonuses paid whereas in United States it costs about $30
for that (Bergsten et al. 2006, 87). Without a doubt, firms operating in such industries can
easily gain comparative advantage. Besides, it is the China’s continuous growing population
that caught the eye of every investor. Lo has given a very brief yet clear example: 1 billion
dollars can be earned if every Chinese buy a certain product with just only one dollar. He also
justified that throughout the increasing economic power of China, investors can foresee the
potential of greater foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to China and at this point China is
a place for the foreigners to start their ‘treasure hunt’.

3
DRAGON CULTURE’S IMPACTS

Return of Confucianism
In order to survive in the global market in this decade, it is important that the cultural barriers
should be taken into account. What more to say for a country with 1.3 billion people who
speaks Chinese and obey a high power distance relationship which emphasize the hierarchical
status in working places. For countries who have a wide gap for cultures with the Chinese,
research should be conducted and they have to be ready to familiarize themselves with the
differences in the market caused by the cultures (Blackwell, Miniard and Engel 317, 2003).
The long-banned Confucian is back while China on its way to great success in its economy.
They believe that it is the Confucian ideology that brought them such a major transformation
in terms of politics and economics. And now, Confucianism is everywhere around the globe
with even university courses based on this ideology and the released of books and DVDs in
relation to Confucianism in every store. The Western countries started putting attention and
research on this because this could be the gate to a better outcome in working with the Chinese
(Mooney 2007, A.46).

Chinese as Global Language

Equally important is the language Mandarin Chinese which is the primary barrier to
comprehend China. China has established three institutes in Africa as a sign of Africa-China
friendship and culture swap over. The purpose of building the institutes is for Chinese
language learning and to promote its culture ever since Africa started involving in trade
cooperation with the Chinese. At this point, the language itself is very popular in Africa
whereby people are getting interested in learning Mandarin Chinese. The Africans think that
this is a good method to reshape their future generation and to prepare them for global
competition in the coming years (Mei 2007, 11).

Bamboo Network ‘Guanxi’

China is also differing from other countries on how they conduct a business. It’s the ‘Guanxi’
or Bamboo network that summarizes all. For instance, the Chinese prefer to deal with people

4
they know and trust. The reliance should occur before a business is to be taken place. The
relationship has to be maintained so that it is easier to deal with the Chinese in the business.
China’s main purpose of building this network is to outspread their force and also to gain more
foreign trade for its own good. In this case, the western companies are now adapting to this
business needs. The China Entrepreneurs Forum which held every year is currently the like of
western companies. Though this kind of event, local and foreign businesspersons mixed and
they get to know about the latest condition of China’s market, search potential market as well
as establish alliance with talented businesspersons (Balfour 2007, 84).

5
Political Collision

Global Power Shifts

The rise of China in its economic will definitely causes major power transition from the west
to east. Researchers named this phenomenon as “global power shift”. This trend had caused
anxiousness in the western world because many of the countries afraid that they are unable to
cope with China’s domination (Gu, Humphrey and Messner 2008, 277). Western country such
as US was used to be the dominant country in the world before the rise of China. However, as
China had slowly caught up the pace of US, its diplomatic relation globally had become
drastically stronger. In that case, China and US had several conflicts between them. First,
China remains to be a communist background country while US is a conventional democratic
country. Second, both countries are competing against each other to gain crude oil supply.
Moreover, US precepts that China is posting a threat to them as the country is rapidly
developing its military (Bergsten et al. 2006, 75).

Occurrence of Conflicts
Since China had joined WTO, it had form regional free trade agreement (FTA) with 27 other
nations, for example Australia, New Zealand and ASEAN countries. On the other hand,
Taiwan strives for independence had become a major political issue for China. China uses its
dominant power in the world to pressurise those countries that recognise Taiwan as an
independent country. For example, the Republic of Macedonia learned the hard way of
crossing Beijing to Taiwan when China uses its veto power in UN Security Council to block
the passage of a peacekeeping bill to aid the country (Bergsten et al. 2006, 119). Meanwhile,
US decision to sanction Burma, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Sudan, North Korea and Angola had
provided a strong diplomatic opportunity with these “anti-US” countries (Bergsten et al. 2006,
132). Beijing had implemented the Energy Diplomacy to ensure the constant supply of oil for
the country. Russia had been a traditional allied country with China since the Cold War. Under
this diplomatic strategy, it had strengthened the relationship between the two countries.

6
Genocide Olympics or Humanity Olympics
Last but not least, China has been protecting Sudan all this while and military equipments as
well as weapons were also supplied by China to Sudan for invasion use (Kristof 2008, A.23).
Although there were many objections by the United Nations towards China’s action on Sudan,
yet China is still protesting to the U.N. to provide safeguard help for Sudan (Farrow 2007,
A.17). China’s headstrong battle against Sudan leads to the possibility of boycott of Olympics
by people concerned. The famous Hollywood director, Steven Spielberg was actually to be the
art director for Beijing Olympics’ opening and closing ceremonies. But it was reported that he
refused to accept the job for the reason that China bears strategic tie with Sudan. He finally
quit the post after trying to persuade China’s President Hu JinTao for nearly a year to stop
invasion of Sudan into Darfur (Cooper and Halbfinger 2008, A.12). Ever since then,
sponsorships that would be involved in Beijing Olympics are also in a dilemma for this
undesirable attention on them (McConnon 2008, 30). The Sudan crisis brought up the
humanity issues and China is facing this human rights difficulty now and then.

7
CONCLUSION
In a nutshell, the rise of China should not be an anxious matter for other countries. However, it
is ideally that every nation is ought to try to adapt to its culture for a better advantage in the
future because it is no longer the west that takeover the world, right now it is the era of the
east and the giant of east has just born. The more they learn, the merrier the competitive
advantage they would get.

(1,729 words)

8
References

Balfour, F. 2007. You say Guanxi, I say schmoozing; How east is meeting west and building
a lingua franca of business. Business Week (4059): 84. ProQuest.
http://proquest.umi.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/
(accessed March 18, 2008)

Bergsten, C. F., B. Gill, N. R. Lardy, and D. Mitchell. 2006. China: The Balance Sheet. New
York: PublicAffairs.

Blackwell, R. D., P. W. Miniard, and J. F. Engel. 2003. Consumer Behaviour. Australia:

South-Western.

Cooper, H., and D. M. Halbfinger. 2008. Spielberg drops out as adviser to Beijing Olympics in
dispute over Darfur conflict. New York Times : A.12. ProQuest.
http://proquest.umi.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/
(accessed March 20, 2008)

Farrow, M. 2007. China can do more on Darfur. Wall Street Journal : A.17. ProQuest.
http://www.proquest.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au
(accessed March 20, 2008)

Gu, J., J. Humphrey, and D. Messner. 2008. Global governance and developing countries: The
implications of the rise of China. World Development 36 (2): 274-292.
ScienceDirect.
http://www.sciencedirect.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/science?
_ob=ArticleURL &_udi =B6VC6-4R8PNRC-
(accessed March 16, 2008).

9
Hennock, M. 2005. China's global hunt for oil.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4191683.stm
(accessed March 16, 2008)

Kristof, N. D. 2008. China’s genocide Olympics; [Op-Ed]. New York Times : A.23.
ProQuest. http://proquest.umi.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/
(accessed March 20, 2008)

Lo, C. 2004.The Misunderstood China. Singapore: Prentice Hall.

McConnon, A. 2008. Wrestling the Olympics activists; How corporate sponsors of the Beijing
Games plan to deal with mounting pressure from advocates for Darfur.
Business Week (4074): 30. ProQuest.
http://proquest.umi.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/
(accessed March 20, 2008)

Mei, X. 2007. Road of China-Africa educational cooperation and exchange with its own
characteristics. US-China Education Review 4 (3): 8-12. Google Scholar.
http://www.teacher.org.cn/doc/ucedu200703/ucedu20070302.pdf
(accessed March 17, 2008)

Mooney, P. 2007. Confucius comes back. The Chronicle of Higher Education 53 (33): A.46.
ProQuest.
http://proquest.umi.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/pqdweb?did=127162439
(accessed March 17, 2008)

10