China

Its changing global role

an introduction

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Shangai Automotive Industry Corporation

• Own Rover Group – a British company.

• China is on the receiving end of TNC-based Globalisation through FDI (foreign direct investment)

• Some Chinese firms are now TNCs, are transplanting abroad & buying up foreign firms.

“When the sleeping dragon awakes the world will quake” Napoleon Bonaparte

• Li Wen is on a shopping trip that is transforming the planet. As she pushes a trolley through her local Wal-Mart, the Shenzen businesswoman looks the epitome of the global consumer. The goods she picks – rice, chicken – are not that different from those of a shopper in London or Tokyo, nor is the money she spends (£100).

• It may be hard to imagine a less exotic image of the Orient but this is the new China dream. By achieving it Mrs Li & her trolley are at the vanguard of one of the most dramatic developments of our age: the rise of China from an inward-looking agricultural nation to an industrial behemoth that is scouring the planet for energy, food & minerals.

• Guardian, Nov 2005

• Read the articles and find evidence of the change in China, particularly of the issues identified in the final sentence.

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/05/china.chrismcgreal

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/may/02/society.conservationandendangeredspecies1

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/may/23/china.rorycarroll• http://commoditytradealert.com/blog/?p=802• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7679471.stm• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7460364.stm• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6112360.stm• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7885045.stm

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3893469.stm• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4271970.stm

Response to the articles

• What is neo-colonialism?

• Is there any evidence of neo-colonialism in the articles?