Global value chains in a brave new world of geopolitics

Bibliographic Data

ID6437784
AuthorsEtel Solingen (0000-0001-7415-3497, University of California, Irvine, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume18
Issue1
Pages112-124
Publication date2025-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Political Power (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2158-379X • E-ISSN: 2158-3803
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/2158379x.2024.2447249
OpenAlexW4406028725
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited18

Global value chains (GVCs) tightened economic interdependence and contributed to development in industrialized and industrializing states. Yet GVCs are progressively perceived as underpinning a country’s economic prowess and its ability to leverage technologies into military hardware and software, thus embodying hard and soft power. Providing a framework for understanding the domestic sources of this protectionist shift, the article analyzes the evolving GVC topography under the US-China trade and technology war. It finds that GVCs remained resilient to geopolitical and pandemic shocks until Russia’s assault on Ukraine, the deepest blow to the the ante-bellum GVC structure. China’s policy of maximizing GVC self-reliance under Xi Jinping triggered reactions by the US and allies. The battle over GVCs is far from over, its scope remains undefined, and its effects hard to estimate. Whether or not this battle enhances hard power, it also unleashes tradeoffs between hard and soft power

Geopolitics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Value (mathematics · Computer Science · Global trade and economics · International Business and FDI · International Development and Aid · Law