This book investigates China’s evolving relations with the Liberal International Order (LIO) over the 40 years of China’s Reform and Opening since 1979. Arguing that China’s recent ascendance in wealth and power is more explained by the effective function of the historic LIO than that of the Chinese model of political economic organization, the book goes on to proffer that the same structural, institutional, and normative forces that motivated engagement also led to the pluralization of the international system. By utilizing systemic time series data on key indicators of global industrial production and distribution, alongside network analysis, the book identifies international structures in global industrial production and distribution at key points of time in China’s industrial rise, highlighting the effects and consequences of the structural change on the organizing principles and mechanisms of the international economic order. Revealing how dynamic interactions among the structural, institutional, and civilizational forces were pivotal for China-LIO relations, this book will be a valuable resource to students and scholars of Chinese Politics, International Relations, and International Political Economy.
