Geopolitics is intrinsically linked to geoeconomics, and neither exists in isolation. China is a fitting contemporary example of this nexus. In the 20 th century, China held little geopolitical clout, if at all; it was a secondary player in a bipolar world led by the United States and the Soviet Union. Things began to change in the 21 st century, and in 2002, China outperformed France to enter the top five largest merchandise traders in the world (along with the United States, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom). [1] In 2004, China’s total trade exceeded US$1 trillion for the first time in its history, while the US’s global trade stood at US$2.3 trillion in the same year. By 2013, China would overtake the US to became the world’s largest trader, and it has held the spot ever since; the gap between both economies’ total trade widened during the Covid-19 pandemic, from only 8.5 percent in 2019 to 21.2 percent in 2020, ballooning further to 28.7 percent in 2021. [2]
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