By All Means Necessary: How China's Resource Quest is Changing the World

Abstract

The explosive growth of China's economy over the past quarter century has been one of the most important events in contemporary times. In short order, China transformed from an impoverished, backward country in which peasants comprised the largest portion of the population (by far) into an industrial dynamo that rivaled only nineteenth century Britain and twentieth century America in its world-historical economic impact. Yet like virtually every other major power in modern history that experienced such high growth rates, China eventually had to turn outward to seek the fuel it needed to sustain its turbo-charged economy. While at first it could rely on domestic resources to grow its industries, the staggering expansion of its industrial base in the past fifteen simply overwhelmed its ability to sustain its meteoric growth. Like its American imperialist predecessors in Europe and North America, the People's Republic has embarked on a massive natural resource quest in orderto maintain its growth trajectory, and its firms (generally state-owned) are now engaged in a full-scale campaign to extract resources from all corners of the earth. In By All Means Necessary, eminent China scholar Elizabeth Economy and her colleague Michael Levi provide a comprehensive account of the topic and also consider where China's pursuit of raw materials may take that nation in coming years. They proceed in logical steps. They begin with the necessary background (the Deng era) andthen move to the dirty business of basic extraction (mining). After detailing China's mining drive in East Asia, Africa, and Latin America - the materials that allow for manufacturing growth in the first place - they move on to the PRC's quest for fuel, water, and land for farming, all of which are required for sustaining growth. The logical next step for a nation with a powerful global economic reach is ensuring its own security, and they close by charting how China's military is now trying to secure sea lanes and acquire advanced military technology. This is a clear, authoritative, and provocative overview of an issue that is crucial not just for China, but for the world as well.