EVENTS

China’s economic rise has been underpinned by an export-oriented regime characterised by state-directed industrial policy, manufacturing scale, and deep integration into global production networks. This model has generated unprecedented productive capacity across a widening range of technologically and strategically significant sectors, reinforcing China’s position at the centre of the global economy. However, the global conditions that enabled this expansion are undergoing fundamental transformation. Slowing global demand, geo-economic fragmentation, geopolitical rivalries, the securitisation of trade and technology, the resurgence of industrial policy, and efforts by major economies to reduce strategic dependencies are collectively altering the absorptive capacity of international markets for Chinese exports. The seminar will examine how the interaction between China's expanding production capabilities and the reconfiguration of the international political economy is generating new structural constraints on its export-led development model. It argues that the principal challenge confronting China lies less in sustaining productive capacity than in securing external demand under conditions of intensifying strategic competition and systemic economic reordering. The discussion will consider how these developments reshape China's growth model, transform patterns of global industrial competition and rivalry, and affect an emerging geo-economic order in which economic efficiency is increasingly subordinated to considerations of resilience, strategic autonomy and national security.

Speaker

Vivek Y. Kelkar is a researcher, analyst, and columnist working at the intersection of geo-economics, geopolitics, and sustainability. He holds an MA in International Political Economy from the University of Sheffield and an MBA from Ashridge Business School. He is a visiting Faculty at the ABV-Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management and has taught as a Visiting Faculty at IIM-Indore, besides other leading institutions. His work explores global power shifts, strategy, trade transitions, and the geopolitics of climate-related systemic risk—integrating political economy with emerging trends across China, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. He writes for Moneycontrol, Modern Diplomat, Asia Times, Founding Fuel and The Spectator. He has participated in numerous conferences and expert panels on geo-economics and geo-politics, besides moderating at online forums.

Chair

Biswajit Dhar is a Development Economist and former Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He was Director General of the Research and Information System for Developing Countries and played a key role in establishing and leading the Centre for WTO Studies. He has represented India in major multilateral negotiations, including the WTO, UNFCCC, WIPO, and CBD, and has served on expert groups for various international organisations. Professor Dhar has been a consultant to UNCTAD, UNESCAP, UNDP, ILO, WHO, and the South Centre, and is widely published in national and international journals. He is a regular columnist, and has served on the Board of Directors of the EXIM Bank of India, and advises several trade and IPR-focused institutions.

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