Bad Debts: Assessing China's Financial Influence in Great Power
Politics

November 19, 2009
5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
LBJ Library Brown Room, 10th Floor

The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law invites you to Bad Debts: Assessing China's Financial Influence in Great Power Politics with Daniel Drezner, Professor of International Politics at The Fletcher School, Tufts University on Thursday, November 19, 2009, at 5:00 pm in the LBJ Library Brown Room, 10th Floor. Commentators and policymakers have articulated growing concerns about U.S. dependence on China and other authoritarian capitalist states as a source of credit to fund its trade and budget deficits. What are the security implications of China's creditor status? If Beijing or another sovereign creditor were to flex its financial muscles, would Washington buckle? Professor Drezner will argue that the power of credit has been exaggerated in policy circles.

China can use its financial power to resist American entreaties, but it cannot coerce the United States into changing its policies. Daniel W. Drezner is professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a senior editor at The National Interest. Drezner has received fellowships from the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Harvard University. He is the author, most recently, of All Politics is Global: Explaining International Regulatory Regimes (Princeton University Press, 2007), which explores how and when regulatory standards are coordinated across borders in an era of globalization. Drezner writes a widely read foreign affairs blog at http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com.

This presentation is part of the Strauss Center's International Security Speaker Series, which features leading scholars and policy practitioners discussing challenges and solutions for meeting the security demands of the modern world.

The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law engages the best minds in academia, government and the private sector in developing practical solutions to the pressing problems of an increasingly globalized world. For more information on the Strauss Center, please visit http://www.robertstrausscenter.org.