China's geoeconomic strategy: what power shift to China?

That economic and fi nancial power is shifting from West to East – and specifically to China – has become a mantra of our age, repeated so often and so insistently that it appears to be widely regarded as self-evident. Frequently, it is accompanied by the assertion China is set irreversibly on the path to global pre-eminence, if not outright domination. It is only a matter of time, it is sometimes suggested, before China rules the world.