Just 20 years ago, had anyone suggested that China would become an economic powerhouse, people would likely have thought they’d lost the plot. A communist governed nation with a capitalist economy? Impossible!

Post-2008 financial crisis, when the developed West was contemplating how to pull back from the precipice not of recession, but depression, and one wonders quite how the world economy might have coped without China’s dragon-fired growth. This has created a strange dichotomy: China the superhero, helping to keep advanced economies from the jaws of dire austerity; and China the supervillain, accused of protectionism and worse.

Indeed, China looks to be increasingly comfortable grabbing some of the center-stage limelight, having delivered a confident speech at the annual Davos gabfest on how the country is looking outwards globally, as well as pushing ahead with leading negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. Is China about to abandon its protectionist stance, and become a fully immersed global player?

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