Harold K. Jacobson and Michel Oksenberg bring their considerable knowledge of, respectively, international agencies and China to this study of the evolving relationship between the People’s Republic of China and the keystone international economic organizations (KIEQs): the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and its affiliated agencies, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).Until the early 1970s China was hostile toward the KIEOs, seeing them as instruments of capitalist exploitation. The change in that position, and the ensuing rapprochement between the two sides culminating in the negotiations and Chinese membership in the KEIOs, is an important subject. It is made immeasurably more significant by the extraordinary potential of China in the world economy. The different perspectives of the two authors permits this process to be analyzed from the point of view of both sides and to be informed by discussions and interviews with senior officers of the KIEOs and high Chinese officials.Among the questions addressed are: How and why did such a sharp change in the relationship between China and the KIEOs occur? What accounts for the Chinese decision to seek inclusion in the KIEOs? How did the KIEOs, and their most important members, the Western states, come to welcome China’s inclusion? What have the consequences of China’s involvement in the IMF and World Bank been for the two institutions and for China? What are the issues involved in China’s request for entrance in the KIEOs and full participation in the GATT? How will China’s involvement in the KIEOs affect the USSR’s involvement?Although the book deals with issues and events that predate the June, 1989, events in Tiananmen Square, the authors completed their manuscript after those events. They endeavor to interpret their observations in the light of the changed situation in China and the clear evidence that China has not yet settled into easy international participation with the Western states.
