Selective Reshaping: China’s Paradigm Shift in International Economic Governance

Abstract In contrast with the selective adaptation approach toward external norms seen in its accession to the World Trade Organization, China increasingly plays a proactive role on the international stage, with the Belt and Road Initiative at the center of these activities. How can we understand this new approach by China toward international economic governance? What is responsible for China’s shifting approach, and what are the implications of this shift? The paper presents selective reshaping as a new theoretical framework, and argues that China is shifting toward the selective reshaping of institutions and rules within the global economic order. Within this theoretical framework, perception and conception, complementarity and legitimacy are influencing components that affect selective reshaping, and which manifest substantially differently in this context, when compared with selective adaptation. Selective reshaping is likely to transform the institutions and rules within the international economic order, and carry long-term implications.