China’s economic nationalists: from Bretton Woods to Bandung

Conventional wisdom holds that the post-WWII international economic order was the product of a dominant Anglo-American power structure and the policy ideas of British and American officials. But this account overlooks the leading role played by Nationalist China at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, and the People’s Republic of China at the 1955 Bandung Conference. How did Chinese officials conceive of the changing relationship between the state, the nation and the global economy during this momentous decade? How did they define the relationship between the international economic order and China’s security interests? How did the international economic order intersect with evolving notions of Chinese nationalism? This paper outlines the conceptual framework underpinning a new project that seeks to sharpen our understanding of the connections between economics, security and nationalism, and to expand the empirical record on how non-Western states contributed to the international economic order at a critical juncture in its evolution.

Dr Amy King is a Lecturer in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University, specialising on Chinese foreign and security policy, China-Japan relations, and the international relations and security of the Asia-Pacific region. Amy received her DPhil in International Relations and MPhil in Modern Chinese Studies from the University of Oxford. She is the author of China-Japan Relations After World War II: Empire, Industry and War, 1949–1971, which will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2016.

This seminar series has been organised in association with the China Centre.