China’s rise and the reconfiguration of global economic governance

China ‘s rapid economic and political ascension is changing the configuration of global economic governance. In some cases, Chinese initiatives have improved and complemented global governance structures, rather than fundamentally altering and undermining them. In other cases, a sometimes more fragile status quo endures. This special issue examines how China seeks to reconfigure global economic governance. It introduces the issue in two steps. First, it focuses on how China’s rise is altering global economic governance in development finance, trade, and sovereign debt restructuring. Second, the special issue provides detailed analysis of China’s actions in global economic governance, establishing varying degrees of support and opposition ranging from deep cooperation to deep challenging. The special issue features contributions that explore how China is interacting with the global economic order by pinpointing how and why China chooses to challenge, support, or alter multilateral economic institutions. This provides more substance to the claims that China is either a revisionist or a supporter of the liberal international order and offers a more nuanced way to understand how China (dis)engages with multilateral economic institutions. More specifically, it highlights how China has changed economic institutions through its actions and responses by the West to its actions.