Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

by Adam Tooze

In East Asia, America’s alliance system was always more loosely knit. And the victory of the West in the cold war was far from complete. China’s economic triumph is a triumph for the Communist Party. This is still the fundamental reason for doubting the possibility of truly deep cooperation with China in global economic governance. Unlike South Korea, Japan or Europe, China is not a subordinate part of the American global network. When the United States extended swap lines in 2008, it was acting in a zone that is both a depoliticized realm of economic activity and yet framed by a deep power relationship. The politics of Chinese foreign investment and suspicion of the role played by its state-owned enterprises suggest that deeply shared economic interests, of the kind that legitimated the Fed’s swap lines for Europe, will be far harder to develop.