Abstracts n°296

With economie growth running at around 8% per annum for over 20 years, China is often in the headlines of the Western media. The emergence of this démographie giant on the world economie stage and its greater involvement in geopolitics, after years of choosing to remain aloof, have raised considérable concems – which are not absurd, given the size of this new competitor. Furthermore, increasing numberS of multinational firms (sometimes based in the United States or Europe) are choosing to relocate their manufacturing activities to China, where labour is cheap and little social protection is provided. China seems to be in the process of becomîng the factory for the rest of the world.