1.1 Introduction
Ubiquitous globalisation has become the most significant socio-economic phenomenon of the second half of the twentieth century, bringing significant changes to each of the territorial components of the world economy and new developmental impulses to its individual market segments. Its continuation in this millennium was also similar in spirit, and therefore, some authors call the period the stage of deep globalisation or super globalisation (J. Pravec, M. Šikula, etc.). With the fall of communism and the expansion of capitalism, globalisation has spread to the rest of the world from Central Europe through the former USSR to China. Such naming of a set of fundamental and even historical system changes may now be exaggerated, but it mainly indicates the fact that it penetrated all the pores of economic life and significantly influenced every world territory and region. When future historians and leading experts will evaluate the first two decades of this millennium in their economic theses, they will probably not be able to use any less modest naming of the crucial driving force of development processes in the world.
The definitions and expert explanations of globalisation are broad in principle, its developmental trajectory is long lasting and the optic of approaches to its understanding is multidimensional. However, it is undeniable that the liberalisation of external economic relations as the mainstay of globalisation has created decisive prerequisites for the dynamic expansion of scientific and technical knowledge and its more efficient commercial exploitation. The result of this process is that the degree of interdependence in the world economy, at all its macro-, meso- and microeconomic levels, is increasing and, on the other hand, all the components of globalisation are co-responsible for its successful functioning. At the same time, this process has created a generally accepted assumption that the new stage of globalisation forms a stable development environment for each individual, firm or state, or their integration groups, enabling them to use it efficiently in their favour, thereby promoting general prosperity and positive influence on each component of this process. Several experts have also presented globalisation as a kind of mantra which is substantially more immune and more successful against the negative consequences of regular business cycles. In their view, economic depressions and slowdowns were not caused by it but they were rather the result of the lack of the globalisation.
In the sphere of economics, globalisation represents a spontaneous process of ever more intensive integration of the world’s countries into one organised system. It manifests as an increase in economic activity across national and regional borders. Its main characteristics are, “Accelerated movement of goods, services and property rights through business-investment flows and movement of people through migration flows, reduction of the dependence on geographical distances and increase of the interconnection and dependence of the world” (Cihelková et al., 2014, p. 47). The presented data are explaining the unprecedented shift in the Chinese position in the global economy. The fact that in 2018, China can undoubtedly be regarded as a global economic number 2 is neither the result of linear or random paradigm but rather a broad-spectrum projection of many systematic global and regional processes that have played an important role in its progress. Their result is China’s increasingly dominant influence on the global organisation of the current world, particularly with regard to the structure and intensity of international trade and even financial relations, which is logically reflected in its stronger role in promoting the global socio-political and economic stability.
An objective assessment of the Chinese economy is not possible without taking into account other contexts that have enabled it to build this global position. In essence, the whole process, in addition to internal factors, has been triggered by the deepening structural imbalance in the world caused by oil shocks (1973–1985), later by the crisis in Southeast Asia (1997–1999) and eventually by the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States, which resulted in a long-term global financial crisis. These crises have led to lower economic growth in some regions due to a decline in international demand, rising indebtedness as a sign of bad strategic decisions by national governments and other global problems. Against this background, it has been confirmed that globalisation is also a more sophisticated developmental stage of capitalism and therefore has its natural mantinels.
The facts confirm that these processes had an enormous impact, but their intensity was regionally highly differentiated and so was their adaptation rate. Even at the turn of the millennium, many experts claimed that, “Financial flu has written off the whole of Southeast Asia for good, and with such a low market capitalisation, foreign investors can forget it for the future” (Segal, 2011, p. 7). Others did not agree with this assessment of the new situation. According to them, “It is a mistake to put an equator between reallocation and defeat. As a result of the crisis, labour-intensive production in the Taiwan had been decimated, the domestic export industries in Hong Kong had disappeared, but as Goldman Sachs points out, both of these economies have been better off than Japan and actually got stronger after” (Segal, 2011, p. 7).
Although the ideological protagonists of globalisation have learned from previous periods of its expansion, they still have not gained enough pragmatism and macroeconomic experience to be able to objectively assess the real impact of globalisation on the South and East Asian economies and to objectively evaluate the risks posed to the region by various external cyclical fluctuations. Its relatively successful adaptation was also due to the fact that these countries and its population had a higher pain threshold, that is, the stronger willingness to submit, for example, to different structural manoeuvres to the detriment of the growth of their own standard of living and the improvement of working conditions. In the economic environment of developed market economies (DMEs ), such approaches would not be possible and would provoke a violent reaction that would result in far-reaching political and socio-economic shocks. In the case of Asian countries, however, they ultimately had a significant impact on overcoming crisis situations. Their overall success and continually better position in the world economy were the results of their better adaptation on the new situation.
Initially, globalisation processes were thought of as the most friendly to DMEs. They have had the necessary lead over their potential economic competitors from other territories due to historically accumulated operational capital, extensive macroeconomic experience and more dynamic economic growth, and the resulting positive effects on the functioning of so-called governance structure. In order to make more effective use of their own national comparative advantages, they have sophisticated their own industries on a long-term basis and continuously improved the overall organisation of economic life. Externally, they have built up their bilateral and multilateral foreign trade relations to gain a better access to the comparative advantages of other countries, and by mutually exchanging such benefits, they have mastered the shortcomings of their own limited production profile. To that end, the work of various international organisations has been adapted to coordinate these processes and to overcome the emerging problems. The whole process logically resulted in high intensity and the resulting stability of bilateral socio-economic ties between individual DMEs, and it has ever more consistently reflected in the deepening of the various forms of international cooperation and, subsequently, the expansion of the specialisation of business entities operating there.
Gradually it has been shown that the advantage does not have to be the main reason for initiating redistribution processes in international production but that other preconditions that affect the production process in a significant way are successfully applied. The main one is a growing expansion of the interests of trans-national corporations (TNCs), which have been more flexible and more vigorous in the pursuit of their global economic priorities and long-term development strategies than national representations. They also responded more flexibly to developments in the world markets and to the various unexpected macroeconomic changes that had taken place or influenced them. In addition, they had enough capital to allow them to wait longer for the positive results of the various projects built in Asia and they were more patient in their enforcement. With the present position of China as an important geostrategic power, it is not possible to engage in an in-depth analysis and objective evaluation of all processes affecting the economic development and the current economic life of this country, without taking into account the specific context that helped to achieve that position. Also, the overall context of the global economy cannot be omitted.
Since the early 1970s, when various failures in the world economy had begun to escalate and the first and second oil shock broke out in response to the abolition of the Bretton Woods Monetary System and the resulting global consequences (the implementation of currency floating, the abolition of the free convertibility of the dollar for gold, etc.) which had a negative impact on the international positions of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), it was obvious that adaptation to the new reality would be painful for most countries. Therefore, due to the limited space to promote more progressive reforms, most DMEs had seen an economic slowdown and consequently a creation of a temporarily free operating area in which TNCs began to move their productive activities. Initially, their destination was Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, the so-called Asian four tigers (Newly industrialised countries—NICs1) and later China.
It was undeniable that the price of oil had increased in a relatively short period and that access of the most important DMEs to its supplies had been limited in the light of the threat of embargo by OPEC. However, the whole process also had a strong political charge as these changes were reflected in the sharp rise in prices of most finished products and other raw materials, which in turn affected the situation on international commodity markets as well as the position of individual exporters. Ultimately, the market turmoil had a holistic impact on individual national economies and their internal economic stability. The ability of raw material importers to absorb high prices into their production chains has varied but not all were successful or reached the implementation stage. This has ultimately been reflected not only in their economic results but also in their positions on international markets.
Apart from the fact that a similar share of energy and other inputs is generally needed for the production of a given product in individual countries, which makes it possible to conclude that their final price should be comparable and hence should take into account similar costs of their inputs, the market confirmed that, for example, there was only a relatively small impact on the demand for consumer products whose prices rose almost two-fold in the period of oil shocks. In the case of higher value-added or high-technology products, their price growth was significantly higher, yet the demand was much more willing to adapt.
The counter-reactions to the extraordinary situation on the international energy markets in the first half of the 1980...