Globalization, Managed (China)

Managed globalization refers to the Chinese model of dealing with the irresistible trend of globalization since the 1990s. The Chinese party-state has formed an alliance with intellectuals to interpret globalization as the high stage of modernization and presents itself as the only political force capable of controlling it and leading China to modernization.

The Chinese party-state has made various efforts to facilitate China's participation in the globalization process and at the same time control the pace and directions of China's integration to the global system of production, trade, and finance. For political reasons, the party-state is particularly watchful of the potential threats brought out by cultural globalization, such as liberal ideas of democracy and human rights, and has been constantly adjusting its cultural policies and strategies to deal with the influx of ideas, imageries, and ever increasing information. Although continuously using ideological campaigns to dominate the official discourses via state-owned media, the party-state also maintains close monitoring of key areas in cultural production, such as publishing, the movie and television industries, and the Internet.

Increasingly, the party-state has used a strategy of railroading with profits, namely, rewarding the business entities—domestic and foreign alike—that observe government regulations with handsome rewards of economic interests and punishing the companies that challenge the party-state's monopoly of political power by depriving them of lucrative opportunities in the vast Chinese market. Consequently, the power of the Chinese party-state has not been undermined by the globalization process. On the contrary, by strategically managing the challenge of globalization, the Chinese state has restored political legitimacy in the post-Cold War era, and has grown stronger and more active on the global stage. The Chinese case, therefore, poses a challenge to the theory of state shrinking in the process of globalization.