1. Introduction

Nicole Perlroth and John Markoff, “Symantec Dissolves a Chinese Alliance”, New York Times, 26 March 2012, https://​www.​nytimes.​com/​2012/​03/​27/​technology/​symantec-dissolves-alliance-with-huawei-of-china.​html.

Deng Li, “Huawei started research on 6G network”, HC, 15 August 2019, https://​www.​huaweicentral.​com/​huawei-started-research-on-6g-network/​ (accessed 13 April 2020).

“Thanking Big Brother”, The Economist, 18–24 April 2020, p. 43. The Economist should not be surprised. China has for some time now outcompeted the USA in terms of international aid. “An AidData study”, Cooley and Nexon write, “found that total Chinese foreign aid assistance between 2000 and 2014 reached $354 billion, nearing the US total of $395 billion. China has since surpassed aid disbursals”; Alexander Cooley and Daniel H. Nexon (2020), op.cit.

In this respect, the work by Peter Nolan and others is important; see, for instance, P. Nolan, J. Zhang and C. Liu, “Global Business Revolution, Cascade EFFECT and the Challenges for Catch-up for Large Indigenous Chinese Enterprises [in Chinese: quanqiu shangye gemin, pubu xiaoying yiji zhongguo qiye mianlin de tiaozhan]”, Journal of Peking University (Beijing da xue xue bao), v.43, n.2, 2006, pp. 132–140.

This is our key disagreement with the thesis put forth by Justin Rosenberg and Chris Boyle in their application of UCD to the case of China’s rise, attempting at explaining the Brexit and Trump phenomenon in the USA and Britain respectively in 2016; Justin Rosenberg and Chris Boyle, “Understanding 2016: China, Brexit and Trump in the History of Uneven and Combined Development”, Journal of Historical Sociology, 2019, pp. 1–27. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1111/​johs.​12217.

Chinese leaders stress again and again that their notion of globalisation rests on the premise of “a community of shared future and destiny”, in order to “build a world of enduring peace and prosperity”—implying a non-hegemonic project; see, among others, President Hu, “十八大报告全文英汉对照” Full text of Hu’s report at 18th Party Congress, 12 December 2012, https://web.archive.org/web/20181008174828/http://www.fjfao.gov.cn/wsbs/ggfwpt/fyzl/ssyy/201212/t20121212_1141709_10.htm, Charlotte Gao, “A Community of Shared Future”: One Short Phrase for the UN, One Big Victory for China?”, 5 November 2012, https://​thediplomat.​com/​2017/​11/​a-community-of-shared-future-one-short-phrase-for-un-one-big-victory-for-china/​, and Jacob Mardell, “The Community of ‘Common Destiny’ and Xi Jinping’s new era”, 2 October 2017, https://​thediplomat.​com/​2017/​10/​the-community-of-common-destiny-in-xi-jinpings-new-era/​, all accessed on 19 April 2020. The Economist has picked on these Chinese leadership notions implying an “alternative globalisation project” many times; see, for instance, “Thanking Big Brother”, op.cit.

Although, like neo-liberalism, ordoliberalism means supply-side economics projected by a state’s public policy par excellence, it is nonetheless a form of neo-liberalism that applies primarily to German-Austrian public policy contexts. As Michel Foucault was the first to see in his Cours au Collège de France, 1978–79, this “ordo-model” of neo-liberalism is far more disciplinarian, legalistic and “bio-political”, especially by way of constitutionalising the rule of neo-liberal economics and attempting at de-politicising completely economic decision-making. These, in turn, are mathematically quantified and modelled after a strict anti-inflation bias. Fundamental, in this respect, is the “isolation/independence” of the central bank mechanism from political bargaining and class pressure. Germany has, over the years, managed to transpose onto the European Treaties these ordoliberal-disciplinarian principles reflecting its own model of capitalism. Interestingly, as Ray Kiely shows in his recent work [The Neo-liberal Paradox (2018), Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, and our review in The Political Quarterly by Vassilis K. Fouskas, v.90, n.4, 2019, pp. 812–814] ordoliberalism preceded historically the intellectual formation of neo-liberalism (Milton Friedman and the Chicago School). The best theoretical statement on ordoliberalism available in English is written by Werner Bonefeld (2017), The Strong States and the Free Economy (London: Rowman & Littlefield); on how Germany defeated France in secret negotiations since the early 1960s about the creation of the Euro and the role of a European Central Bank and how, eventually, transplanted its economic model on the EC/EU via the Treaties, see the perceptive accounts by Kenneth Dyson and Kevin Featherstone (1999), The Road to Maastricht. Negotiating Economic and Monetary Union (Oxford: O.U.P.); very informative is the book by Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval (2009), La nouvelle raison du monde. Essai sur la société neolibérale (Paris: La Découverte). The Maastricht Treaty is an ordo Treaty. The landmark of Germany’s ordoliberal domination of the EEC/EC/EU has been the defeat of Mitterrand’s Keynesian experiment in France (1981–1983). The Eurozone crisis has further radicalised the ordoliberal Treaties towards harsher austerity for EU, especially Eurozone, members; on this, see Vassilis K. Fouskas and Bülent Gökay (2019), The Crisis of Euro-Atlanticism and New Authoritarianism; Global Power-Shift (London and New York: Palgrave-Macmillan), esp. Chapters 3 and 5. We dwell on these themes below when we examine the ordoliberal convergence of party systems across the EU, especially the British and the German ones.

See, Jason Beaubien, “Flush with cash, China continues to borrow billions from the World Bank”, NPR, 31 January 2019, https://​www.​npr.​org/​sections/​goatsandsoda/​2019/​01/​31/​689960866/​flush-with-cash-china-continues-to-borrow-billions-from-world-bank?​t=​1587062138954 (accessed 16 April 2020). This dialectics of combined learning and development benefitting the Chinese state is not captured, for instance, by Sean K. Starrs, “Can China unmake the American making of global capitalism?”, Socialist Register, 2019, p. 177.

This, at least, is recognised by supporters of “America’s global economic supremacy” thesis; see, among others, Sean Kenji Starrs (2019), op.cit., p. 194.