Over the next couple of months I'm going to serialise the more interesting parts of my dissertation. Starting, logically enough, with the introduction.
The rise of China has had a profound effect on nearly all aspects of politics, business and culture. To speak of the ‘rise of China’ is to speak of the inexorable development of fully 20% of the World’s population. With this massive shift in class and demographics come opportunities and challenges on the same, immense scale as their underlying cause. Global flows of goods, people and ideas have been, and continue to be, redirected according to the altering supply and demand caused by this shift. Developed and developing countries alike are affected to similar, paradigm shifting degrees, but often in qualitatively different ways.
For most of Latin America, the rise of China has created a period of economic boom as countries flock to satisfy Chinese demand for primary commodities. Chinese reform policies in the late 1970s opened up trade from an inconsequential trickle to what would become a torrent. Chart 1.0.a ( Chart 1.0.a Latin America – China Trade (imports+ exports), Millions of US $) shows the almost exponential rise in trade.
