China is believed to be the oldest continuous civilization on earth. Unlike Egypt, its rival claimant to that “honor, it has remained an empire” (Kitissou 2007). In this sense, it could be argued that China is not rising, but merely recovering. For decades after its 1949 revolution, China pursued a policy of communist economic development based primarily on the state control of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. In 1979 it began an “open door” policy, a sort of gradualist economic reform, “without any detailed ‘blue print’ guiding the process” (Prasad 2004). The reforms are generally believed to have been successful because they led to tremendous growth, and an expansion in international trade, with its imports and exports growing at an average rate of 15 percent each year since 1979 (Prasad 2004). Economic growth stood at an average of 9 percent per annum. But who are the winners and losers from the rise (or recovery) of China?
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