Spatial evolution pattern of Chinese economic power based on the sensitivity and vulnerability of states interdependence

The process of China's rise is the outward expansion of its power space. In times of peace, the interdependence based on trade and investment become the core and foundation of international relations, but the nature of political power among countries has not changed. Asymmetric interdependence has been an alternative to military power, which has become an important source of power. Participation in international mechanism is the main way to achieve China's peaceful rise. Extending the boundaries of the global market has become the main form of China's rise, which results in the reconstruction of the world political landscape and the expansion of Chinese economic power. Based on the theory of economic interdependence, this paper constructs the evaluation model of economic power through analyzing the sensitivity and vulnerability of the world's countries to China's global trade by adopting the trade data between China and the other countries of world in 2002 and 2013, so as to study the spatial expansion pattern of economic power in the context of China's rise. From 2002 to 2013, China's global trade patterns had developed from the tripartite confrontation pattern dominated by East Asia, Western Europe and North America to multi- polar pattern. However, the dependence spatial pattern of world trade and economy to China global trade has presented the other scene, showing a good spatial and temporal inertia that is highly concentrated in Asia, Africa and Latin America near the equator. The distribution of the areas sensitive to China's global trade showed an advancing trend from Asia-Pacific to Africa, Latin America, but the distribution of the areas vulnerable to China's global trade had evolved from point spread to contiguous growth. China's economic power space has expanded from peripheral to the world, and to the developed countries and regions, while the United States in the same period, showing a significant contraction trend.