Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

GEOECONOMIC BALANCING, GEOECONOMIC BANDWAGONING OR GEOECONOMIC HEDGING? GEOECONOMIC BALANCING, GEOECONOMIC BANDWAGONING OR GEOECONOMIC GERMAN-CHINESE RELATIONS 2008-2020

2022; Babeș-Bolyai University; Issue: 38 Linguagem: Inglês

10.24193/ojmne.2022.38.01

2247-0514

Rafał Ulatowski,

European Union Policy and Governance

definition of geoeconomics was offered by Mikael Wigell: "the geostrategic use of economic power" (Wigell, 2016, p. 147).Also, the definition proposed by Robert Blackwill and Jennifer Harris (2017, p. 20) emphasises the means -which are economic -and not the ends (which can be economic, political and strategic).Geoeconomic competition has a long history (Baracuhy, 2019).In the post-Cold War era China is widely seen as a champion of geoeconomics (Grosse, 2014).Also, Germany has developed geoeconomic strategies towards all of its most important partners: the USA, Russia, China and other EU members (Kundnani, 2011;Kappel, 2014; Szabo, 2015).Starting in the late 1970s, the goal of the USA's policy towards China was to integrate China into the liberal world order.Also Germany's strategic goal was to influence reforms in China and integrate it into the liberal world order by means of economic integration.Germany's approach towards China, known as "change through trade", was reminiscent of the strategy of the FRG in the 1970s towards the USSR (Kundnani and Parello-Plesner, 2012, p. 4; Schröder 2006, p. 141; Westerwelle 2012; Westerwelle 2013).Germany was convinced that integrating China into the global economic system would have the effect that "China's authoritarian politics would morph into a free, open, and more democratic system through ever-tightening economic ties."(Barkin, 2020, p. 2).Trade relations were not thought of as potential leverage by German elites.They believed that trade had transformative power in and of itself (Kundnani, 2014, p. 78).But this policy failed.China did not turn into a democracy, the territorial disputes between China and its neighbours have intensified, and the liberal economies of the Western democracies face growing competition from Chinese-style state capitalism (Fuest, 2019).China and the USA find themselves in the Thucydides Trap, "a deadly pattern of structural stress that results when a rising power challenges a ruling one" (Allison, 2017; for an opposite view see: Ng, 2020).Unlike in previous centuries, competition among great powers today is mostly economic.Contrary to the expectations of liberals, a high level of economic exchange has not eliminated clashes in US-Chinese relations.As Dale C. Copeland (1996) argues, high economic interdependence can be "either peace-inducing or war-inducing".US-China trade and technological competition highlights the change that has taken place in the international order, from a Neoliberal Order to a Geoeconomic Order.This transformation is rooted in a shift in emphasis, from absolute gains to relative gains.The USA's support for