Institute of Development Studies

China as the new 'shaper' in development

6 August 2010

The Rising Powers Network China, led by IDS Fellow Frauke Urban and Giles Mohan from the Open University, seeks to analyse the implications of China as the new 'shaper' of global development. The network aims to bridge the gap between our understanding of China's policy interests and processes and its development impacts in low income countries, as well as implications of this for the international development community more broadly.

The network has organised a series of multilateral workshops in China and the UK which looking at:

• achieving a more nuanced and in-depth understanding of the domestic processes behind China's development activities, 
• to analyse the actors, institutions and modes of interaction between China and low income countries, 
• and how to apply the analytical framework developed throughout the network activities to particular areas of on-going research on energy and climate change.  

The understanding and practice of development in China and the EU

The first of these took place on 15 and 16 July in Beijing, organised by IDS, the Open University and Tsinghua University. The workshop looked at 'China as a Rising Power' and was attended by 50 participants who are leading academics, policy-makers, donors and civil society members from the UK, China, the EU, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Entitled 'The understanding and practice of development in China and the European Union', it discussed the implications of a more nuanced and in-depth understanding of the domestic processes behind China's development activities, how this compares to the EU development activities and the global implications for China's external engagement. Key debates were around China's understanding of development as much more encompassing than European debates. There are far more diverse and fragmented drivers of China's international development than the idea of a 'Beijing Consensus' allows for. Also, China's high profile relationships with Africa are quite different from China's engagement with other low income regions such as in the ASEAN region and in Latin America.

China's engagement with low income countries

The second workshop, at SOAS on 23-24 September, will address the channels of interaction for China's engagement with low income countries. The final workshop at IDS in November will apply the new analytical framework to ongoing research in the area of energy and climate change.

Watch this space for an IDS Policy Brief summarising the first workshop's key findings will be published in September to coincide with workshop 2.

For more information about the network visit the websites at risingpowers.open.ac.uk

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• China as the new 'shaper' of global development - The pace and significance of China's rise has implications for both traditional and emerging powers, as well as for developing countries. This plays a role for energy and climate change and for many other development issues. Rising Powers Network is a new network that will place China as the new 'shaper' of global development under the ESRC's Rising Power's Programme. (Ongoing)