In Globalization and National Competition: A Comparative Study of the Seven Emerging Economies (2021), Wen Tiejun argues that China is the only major emerging economy to have secured land, industrial, financial, and state sovereignty prior to deep integration into globalization. By contrast, Turkey, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Venezuela, and South Africa entered the global system with unresolved internal structures, resulting in structural dependence, heightened vulnerability, and recurring crises.
In Wen’s framework, globalization is not a neutral opportunity but a force that magnifies pre-existing conditions. China engaged globalization as a builder of domestic structures, while the other six were compelled to adapt to externally imposed ones. This fundamental divergence accounts for their long-term differences in political stability, industrial depth, crisis resilience, and geopolitical agency.
I. Sovereignty Secured and Sovereignty Deferred: Divergent Paths of Emerging Economies
Wen Tiejun frames the comparative experience of China and the other six emerging economies as a fundamental divide between substantive sovereignty and dependent modernization. China’s development is characterized by genuine control over the material foundations of the economy—land, finance, industry, and crisis management—allowing the state to direct structural transformation and absorb external shocks. This form of sovereignty was not merely political or symbolic, but economic and institutional, rooted in the reorganization of domestic social and productive relations.
By contrast, Turkey, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Venezuela, and South Africa pursued modernization without resolving core internal contradictions. While achieving formal political independence, they remained structurally dependent on global markets, foreign capital, or narrow resource bases. Their early liberalization reflected the expectation that globalization could substitute for incomplete land reform, weak industrial foundations, or fragile financial systems. In Wen’s analysis, this sequencing proved decisive: China escaped the developmentalist trap by consolidating sovereignty before deep global integration, whereas the other six entered globalization prematurely, resulting in enduring vulnerability, cyclical crises, and constrained developmental autonomy.
II. Sequencing Sovereignty and Global Integration: A Structural Divide
China’s developmental trajectory is distinguished by the sequencing of sovereignty prior to globalization. Through revolutionary rupture, it reclaimed control over land, strategic industries, finance, and capital flows, while rejecting inherited foreign debt. This internal consolidation created the institutional and material foundations for development, allowing China to engage global markets selectively and on its own terms. Globalization, in this sequence, became a tool rather than a determinant—subordinate to domestic priorities and state capacity.
The other six emerging economies followed the reverse path. Turkey, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Venezuela, and South Africa entered globalization without first resolving foundational issues of land ownership, industrial structure, or financial autonomy. Although each achieved formal political sovereignty, their economic sovereignty remained partial or absent: India and South Africa lacked meaningful land and capital reform; Indonesia retained colonial-era economic structures; Brazil became constrained by global finance; Venezuela secured control over resources without building industrial capacity; and Turkey combined political independence with persistent economic fragility. Their common expectation was that globalization would compensate for unfinished internal transformation. In Wen Tiejun’s framework, this missequencing explains why China consolidated sovereignty through globalization, while the others remain shaped by it.
III. Land Reform as the Social Bedrock of Development
In Wen Tiejun’s analysis, land reform constitutes the decisive social foundation of successful development, and China’s experience stands in sharp contrast to that of the other emerging economies. Through radical land redistribution, China transformed the peasantry into small property holders, creating a broad and stable social base for modernization. This restructuring eliminated absolute rural poverty, enabled large-scale labor mobilization, and allowed the state to undertake massive infrastructure projects without the prohibitive costs associated with private land acquisition. Crucially, the countryside also functioned as a buffer during periods of urban or industrial crisis, helping to absorb shocks that might otherwise have destabilized society.
The other six countries—India, Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa, Turkey, and Venezuela—failed to establish this social foundation. India and South Africa never carried out fundamental land reform, leaving colonial or apartheid-era property relations intact and rural poverty entrenched. Indonesia retained a plantation-based economy, increasingly marked by new forms of enclosure driven by foreign capital. Brazil remains defined by extreme land concentration, Turkey experienced rapid urbanization without meaningful rural transformation, and Venezuela, despite resource wealth, became dependent on food imports. Wen’s conclusion is unequivocal: without land reform, industrialization rests on a fragile social base, and economic crises tend to erupt as politically explosive events rather than being internally absorbed and managed.
IV. Productive Industrialization versus Structural Traps of Resources and Services
Wen Tiejun distinguishes China’s development path by its commitment to comprehensive industrialization rather than reliance on narrow growth engines. China built a complete and internally connected industrial system in which manufacturing absorbed surplus labor and evolved alongside large-scale infrastructure. Finance was deliberately subordinated to production, and engagement with globalization was selective and instrumental, serving domestic industrial upgrading rather than dictating it. This integration of industry, infrastructure, and labor created a self-reinforcing growth structure anchored in real production.
By contrast, the other six emerging economies fell into various forms of structural traps rooted in resources, services, assets, or finance. Brazil experienced deindustrialization and a return to primary exports after early industrial gains; Venezuela remained locked in a single-commodity oil economy without diversification; India developed a sharply divided structure in which elite services coexist with mass underemployment; Indonesia retained a colonial-style role as a raw material supplier; Turkey relied on construction-led growth sustained by credit expansion; and South Africa combined commodity dependence with a hollowed manufacturing base. The core difference, in Wen’s analysis, is that China monetized production itself, while the others monetized resources, assets, consumption, or financial flows—yielding growth that was fragile, exclusionary, and vulnerable to external shocks.
V. Financial Control and Financial Exposure: Divergent Monetary Paths
In Wen Tiejun’s framework, financial sovereignty is a decisive boundary between resilient development and chronic vulnerability. China’s financial system is defined by deliberate state control over capital flows, a predominantly state-owned banking sector, and firm monetary sovereignty. Capital controls insulate the domestic economy from speculative volatility, while state banks function as instruments of long-term development rather than short-term profit. This structure enables counter-cyclical regulation, allowing the state to expand spending during downturns and absorb losses internally instead of transmitting crises to society.
Crucially, China treats foreign capital as conditional and subordinate. External finance is filtered, directed, and disciplined to serve productive investment and industrial upgrading. Rather than allowing global capital markets to dictate domestic policy, China preserves the capacity to set interest rates, manage credit allocation, and stabilize its currency. As a result, financial openness does not translate into financial dependence, and globalization does not compromise macroeconomic autonomy.
The other six emerging economies followed a markedly different trajectory marked by financial penetration rather than financial control. Turkey and Brazil liberalized capital accounts early, exposing themselves to volatile “hot money” cycles, high interest rates, currency instability, and recurring asset bubbles. India’s financial system remains highly sensitive to U.S. monetary policy, with headline growth figures masking underlying fragility. Indonesia carries persistent deficits and heavy external debt burdens, South Africa depends on portfolio capital and credit ratings shaped by external institutions, and Venezuela lost monetary sovereignty altogether, descending into hyperinflation and exchange-rate warfare. In Wen’s conclusion, the contrast is stark: China employs global capital as a policy instrument, while the others are constrained—and often destabilized—by its movements.
VI. Capacity to Absorb Crisis: Internal Adjustment versus External Shock
In Wen Tiejun’s analysis, crisis management capacity is a decisive marker of genuine development. China’s political economy is structured to absorb shocks internally rather than transmit them outward into social collapse. Through counter-cyclical regulation, the state retains the ability to expand fiscal spending during downturns, supported by a large fiscal space and a banking system capable of absorbing losses. Rather than treating crises as purely disruptive events, China has repeatedly used them as moments for structural adjustment, consolidation, and upgrading.
A critical element of this capacity lies in institutional buffers. State-owned banks prevent financial distress from cascading into systemic collapse, while the rural sector functions as a social and economic shock absorber, mitigating the destabilizing effects of urban unemployment or industrial contraction. This combination allows crises to be managed as transitional phases within a long-term development strategy, rather than as existential threats to political or economic order.
The other six emerging economies lack comparable mechanisms of internal absorption. Turkey is repeatedly destabilized by currency collapses driven by capital flight; Brazil oscillates between stagnation and inflation under fiscal paralysis; Indonesia faces inflationary pressures compounded by external debt and volatile capital flows; Venezuela experienced hyperinflation and systemic breakdown; South Africa remains trapped in chronic stagnation accompanied by deep social unrest; and India’s volatility is often obscured by statistical growth narratives rather than resolved structurally. In Wen’s framework, the contrast is clear: China contains and restructures crises from within, while the others import crises from the global system and see them amplified by unresolved domestic weaknesses.
VII. Geography, State Formation, and the Politics of Strategic Depth
In Wen Tiejun’s framework, geography and state formation are not passive background conditions but active determinants of developmental capacity. China’s trajectory is shaped by its character as a continental civilization-state, defined by vast territory, a large population, and a unified internal market. This scale provides strategic depth: the ability to absorb external shocks, redistribute pressures internally, and sustain long-term national projects. Centralized state capacity, forged through historical rupture and consolidation, allows China to translate geographic scale into coordinated planning rather than fragmentation.
This combination of strategic depth and institutional cohesion enables forward-looking governance. China can pursue long planning horizons, mobilize resources across regions, and integrate infrastructure, industry, and population movement into a coherent national strategy. External disruptions—financial crises, trade shocks, or geopolitical pressure—are mitigated by internal buffers and the state’s capacity to reallocate costs across space and time. Geography, in this sense, becomes a source of resilience rather than vulnerability.
The other six emerging economies face structural constraints rooted in geography, history, and incomplete state formation. Turkey’s peninsular position renders it a geopolitical chokepoint, repeatedly instrumentalized by competing powers. Indonesia’s vast archipelagic fragmentation complicates national integration and centralized coordination. India inherited colonial property relations that weaken mass mobilization; Brazil possesses continental scale without political or institutional coherence; Venezuela’s geography is economically narrowed by single-commodity dependence; and South Africa’s negotiated transition preserved old structures without a transformative rupture. In Wen’s assessment, these conditions produce reactive governance—states responding to crises as they arise rather than shaping long-term trajectories. The contrast is therefore structural: China’s geography and state formation enable planning and resilience, while the others’ configurations constrain autonomy and foster chronic vulnerability.
VIII. Social Stability and Political Order under Divergent Developmental Paths
In Wen Tiejun’s analysis, social outcomes are inseparable from the structure of development, and political stability ultimately rests on economic sovereignty. China’s development model generated broad-based poverty reduction and mass employment, which in turn produced what Wen describes as “developmental legitimacy.” Although inequality emerged during periods of rapid growth, the state retained sufficient capacity to intervene, redistribute, and stabilize society. Nationalism in this context is linked to material progress and collective improvement, reinforcing political cohesion rather than compensating for social dislocation.
By contrast, the other six emerging economies exhibit patterns of polarization and recurrent unrest rooted in dependent development. South Africa remains marked by extreme inequality and rising xenophobia; Brazil has experienced persistent elite concentration alongside social upheaval and political rupture; Turkey faces deep youth unemployment masked by nationalist rhetoric; India hosts the world’s largest poor population despite sustained headline growth; Indonesia relies heavily on informal labor, leaving the majority economically insecure; and Venezuela’s systemic collapse has been widely framed as the failure of “socialism,” obscuring deeper structural vulnerabilities. In Wen’s framework, these outcomes are not accidental but structural: where economic sovereignty is weak or absent, social fractures deepen and political instability becomes chronic. Economic dependence, rather than ideology alone, amplifies inequality, undermines legitimacy, and transforms economic shocks into social crises.
IX. Geopolitical Agency and Structural Subordination
In Wen Tiejun’s framework, geopolitical positioning is not merely a matter of diplomacy or alliance choice, but a structural outcome of domestic economic organization and state capacity. China occupies the position of a strategic center rather than a peripheral participant in the global system. Its scale, industrial depth, and financial autonomy allow it to shape global trade, investment, and infrastructure through initiatives such as the Belt and Road, while also constructing parallel institutions that reduce reliance on Western-dominated systems. Geopolitics, in this context, becomes an extension of internal sovereignty.
China’s continental scale and integrated internal market provide the material basis for resisting external pressure and containment. Because its development is anchored in production rather than finance or resource dependency, China can absorb geopolitical shocks and respond strategically rather than reactively. Its ability to set agendas, propose alternatives, and sustain long-term external engagement reflects a form of agency grounded in structural strength, not temporary leverage.
The other six emerging economies occupy far more constrained geopolitical roles, shaped largely by external forces. Turkey functions as a buffer and transit state, repeatedly instrumentalized by competing powers. Indonesia is treated as a strategic pivot under constant pressure in great-power rivalries. Brazil remains peripheral to the U.S.-centered financial cycle, while South Africa is positioned primarily as a commodity appendage. Venezuela is reduced to a sanctioned resource exporter, and India, despite its diplomatic prominence as a “geopolitical darling,” lacks the structural strength to convert attention into autonomy. In Wen’s analysis, the contrast is decisive: China shapes geopolitics through internal consolidation and scale, while the others are positioned within geopolitics as instruments, buffers, or pressure points shaped by the global system rather than shaping it themselves.
X. Why China Succeeded: The Consolidation of Sovereignty Before Globalization
China’s success, in this framework, rests on the prior consolidation of multiple, mutually reinforcing forms of sovereignty:
- Land sovereignty
Effective control over land relations and rural transformation
(Absent or incomplete in India, South Africa, Brazil, and Indonesia) - Industrial sovereignty
A complete and autonomous industrial system capable of absorbing labor and upgrading production
(Undermined or lost in Brazil, Venezuela, Indonesia, and South Africa) - Financial sovereignty
State control over finance, capital flows, and monetary policy
(Eroded in Turkey, Brazil, and South Africa) - Crisis sovereignty
The capacity to absorb economic and external shocks without triggering regime instability or systemic collapse - Strategic sovereignty
The ability to set agendas and shape rules in the international system rather than seeking admission into existing ones
Core logic: China succeeded not because it globalized more rapidly, but because it secured these sovereignties first, allowing globalization to be used as an instrument of development rather than a source of constraint.
XI. Summary & Implications
China’s ascent, in this perspective, is not a byproduct of globalization but the outcome of deliberate resistance to its disciplining pressures until robust domestic foundations were in place. By consolidating control over land, industry, finance, and state capacity before deep global integration, China ensured that globalization served as a tool of development rather than a source of constraint. The contrasting experiences of Turkey, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Venezuela, and South Africa illustrate different failure modes of premature globalization—opening markets before industrialization, liberalizing before sovereignty, democratizing without redistribution, or exporting resources without building productive capacity. China stands apart not because it embraced globalization more fully, but because it engaged it later, selectively, and on terms shaped by its own internal consolidation.
References
- Globalization And National Competition: A Comparative Study Of The Seven Emerging Economies. Wen Tiejun. 2021.