The Chinese State's Perception of International Monetary Order

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes what has framed and conditioned the Chinese State’s perception of international monetary order, which is so far of problematic interpretation. Market economic reforms can be seen as what indicates its views on the matter. However, the unfulfilled promise to open the capital account since 2007 and the concurrent crisis in the international monetary system constitute what has perplexed the interpretation of its perception. It is problematic not only to the US imagination of China but also to China’s imagination of itself. So, this research will conduct a critical analysis of several issues in what regards the postwar international monetary system, neo-liberalism, the being of the Chinese State, and its perception. Thus, the research is situated within a broad, ongoing debate concerning the rise of China and the future of the liberal international order. The first issue concerns the State’s general being and its perception that will be addressed through an in-depth inquiry into the metaphysical foundation, which underlies neo-liberalism, the modern conception of the State, and the relationship between knowledge and perception. The second issue concerns the “nature” of the postwar international monetary system that will be addressed through the analytics of American IR knowledge and discourse to show how the international monetary system has been conceptualized differently and how the dominant power/rising power relationship has been framed accordingly. This analysis will analyze each paradigm’s narrative ground that renders possible the quasi-perception of the other’s perception and the “scientific” determination of China’s identity, interest, and power relationship with the United States. The analysis will revisit two critical junctures – i.e., the collapse of the Bretton Woods system and the US subprime mortgage crisis – and compare France and China’s characters in two stories. The mismatch between the theoretical expectation and China’s actual behavior necessitates a new approach. The third issue concerns China’s being that remains “enigmatic” to conventional IR knowledge due to the lack of in-depth theorization of the Chinese State. All three IR paradigms look for a continuous, coherent representation of unity. To address this issue, this dissertation adopts a Foucauldian inspired perspective that allows observers to see discontinuity and inconsistency.

The research will recontextualize the post-1978 economic reforms, especially the 2007 financial reform, against a backdrop of growing regional heterogeneity in China since the 1950s. This analysis will point to the acute interregional confrontations since the 1980s and the subsequent formation of a triadic political economy (Beijing-Shanghai-Shenzhen). This dissertation argues that the derailment of the 2007 capital account reform has little to do with the concurrent global financial crisis, which only plays a reinforcing role, nor with the resentment at the dollar’s hegemony. Quite the contrary, the Wen Jiabao government supports the international dollar standard by cooperating with the United States. The derailment of the reform momentum is just a matter of more complex struggle within China and has everything to do with the triad-based interests. The reason is closely related to the political economy of interregional relations, and the established fiscal, exchange rate, and capital account regimes. An analysis of the identities of Tientsin, Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen will show the different impacts of their identities on China’s politics. This dissertation thus helps formulate an alternative theory that can explicate what has affected China’s perception of the international monetary order. In the end, this dissertation raises attention to the rise of the Beijing-centric economic geography and the ideological lineage between Beijing’s own urban project (i.e., “Big Beijing” since the early 2000s) and the “One Belt One Road” (since 2013).