Title: China: Political giant or fragile coalition?

Authors: Jean-Pierre Lehmann

Addresses: Director, Stockholm School of Economics, The European Institute of Japanese Studies

Abstract: The forty years or so after 1945 witnessed economic changes and reversals of fortune, but pretty much all within the familiar club. In 1950 Britain|s GNP was roughly twice that of Japan, whereas by 1985 it was about half. Other fairly spectacular changes affected the relative position of the world|s major economies: the rise of Japan and Germany, the relative decline of the US, etc. Throughout those decades, however, the changing position of economic actors took place within a familiar framework of dramatis personae. The four major European nations, the United States and Japan has been the world|s economic powers for the halfcentury or more that preceded the Second World War and so, after a brief, if bloody, interval they remained in the four or more decades that followed the war. There was no grand exit, just as no new kid had emerged on the world economic block, with the possible exception of the so-called |Four Little Dragons| - as their name implies, however, they are |little|. Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong were unlikely in unison, let alone individually, to throw down a gauntlet to the world economic system.

Keywords: China; economic growth; energy policy; environmental issues.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGEI.1996.063451

International Journal of Global Energy Issues, 1996 Vol.8 No.5/6, pp.390-396

Published online: 14 Jul 2014 *

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