Global China, Global Crisis: Falling Profitability, Rising Capital Exports and the Formation of New Territorial Industrial Complexes

Abstract

This dissertation explores the relationship between what has been called the “long crisis” or the “breakdown” tendency of the capitalist economy, driven by a constant, intensifying struggle to address the twin problems of falling profitability and rising surplus population, and changing geographies of Chinese industry both within and beyond China. Particular attention is paid to the current state of Chinese global outbound FDI and the prospective linkage between these capital exports and the production of new territorial production complexes in less industrialized countries, with a case study in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The Great Recession of 2008 acts as an important nexus, since the response to the crisis within China marks an important pivot in domestic industrial trends and the beginning of an acceleration in outbound FDI. Its aftermath also illustrates the necessary theoretical linkage between the two related, but not identical, meanings of the term “crisis” prevalent in the literature reviewed here: The first is crisis in its momentary or immediate sense, referring to individual economic crises that have a relatively clear beginning and end. The second is crisis in its “long” or secular sense, referring to systemic breakdown tendencies inherent in capitalist accumulation. The distinct shifts in the domestic and international geography of Chinese industry, seemingly triggered by the 2008 crisis, can be better understood through the combination of both the momentary and secular dimensions of the concept, only properly visible when capitalism is appraised as a global system.