Introduction
The global financial crisis has been a heady time for China’s leaders. Among elites in China, a tinge of triumphalism is in the air. The world media are awash in speculation about a historical tipping point from the United States to China. All the major Western economies have been wounded. Their financial institutions, once seen as the white knights of global capitalism, have fallen—some fatally. China now boasts the three largest banks in the world, positions recently held by American behemoths like Citigroup and Bank of America. The Group of Eight, meanwhile, has become anachronistic as a concept almost overnight. The Group of 20 has emerged as its de facto successor, with China as a leading member. The first two summits of G 20 heads of state, held in Washington and London, the Mecca and Medina of the Western financial system, were pregnant with opportunity for China. What was China—now the world’s third-largest economy and trading power— going to do? Would it assume the mantle of global leadership?
