Conclusion: Financial Crime and the “Chinese Century”

Abstract

In a 1941 Life magazine editorial, Time/Life publisher Henry Luce noted Britain’s decline and urged the US rulers “to create the first great American Century,” a world dominated by US military and corporate power (Luce, 1941). The United States remains very powerful but its capacity to lead the world has been diminished by the burden of debt accumulated over the past decades and the recent financial meltdown. On the other hand, China has witnessed the emergence of a new industrialization era characterized by rapid economic development, the world’s largest foreign-exchange reserves, and a growing financial market. Many observers assert that the world’s economic fortunes are now increasingly dependent upon China, including “the prospects of the dollar, the Euro, the oil price, industrial commodities, global equity markets and bond prices” (Rees-Mogg, 2005; Subramanian, 2011).