While the Chinese government uses its vast financial resources to secure Beijing’s interests abroad, wealthy private Chinese citizens and corporations are on an international buying frenzy. China’s ever-increasing purchasing power is influencing every region of the globe, with some striking parallels between its overseas acquisitions and Japan’s international investments in the 1980s. However, China’s political system, a foreign policy that is often at odds with Western interests, and (counter-intuitively) its relative poverty mean that China’s global shopping spree may effect the balance of global politics in a way Japan never could.
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