Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade

Professor and former Center for Presidential History fellow Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson (London School of Economics) joins the CPH to speak about her new book Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade. In her book, Ingleson discusses how the interests of American businesses and the Chinese state converged to reframe the Chinese economy and their place in the global market.

Ingleson argues that the convergence of the world’s largest communist state and the forces of global capitalism began in the 1970s, as China and the United States reopened trade. She examines how rapprochement between the United States and China and deindustrialization within the US created the environment for this convergence and examines the shifts in diplomacy, politics, business, and labor that underscored China’s integration into the global market. In so doing, Ingleson reveals a fundamental change in perceptions of trade with China among the American business community. Where once China had been a dreamed of destination for American exports, in the 1970s American and Chinese businesspeople and officials had reframed China to become a manufacturing giant in waiting.

Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson is a specialist in the histories of US foreign relations, specifically US-China relations, as well as labor and capitalism. She has published several articles on US-China relations and serves on the editorial board of the Cold War History journal.