From export platform to market provider: China’s perspectives on its past and future role in a globalised Asian economy

Since the 1990s China’s development of a market-oriented economy and its engagement with globalisation have given it a role as the primary export platform of a globalised Asian economy. This has not only promoted the exports of capital and intermediate goods of the other leading Asian economies, but has also stabilised the fluctuations of the Asian economy and deepened the regional production networks in the US-dominated global economic system. As China is entering an economic ‘new normal’, its economic structure and growth pattern will experience a period of transition. Thus its role in the Asian economy and the global economic system will change. China’s new role as a market provider for the final consumer goods from the region might increase. China’s efforts to reform its domestic economy and develop regional economic cooperation arrangements will helpful in accomplishing this role change, but various uncertainties and contingencies might continue to pose obstacles for this process.