Prosperity And Security:on Britain's Economic Diplomacy In Emerging And Developing Economies Since The 2007/08 Financial Crisis

As the 2007/08 financial crisis swept the whole world,global economy suffered a significant loss;Britain was no exception."Open for business",announced by Britain's new Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010,became one of the essential economic recovery policies and features of diplomacy transformation for Britain after the crisis.It was the accelerated globalisation that has spread the economic downturn worldwide and fostered a favourable environment for the emerging and developing economies.They engaged more frequently in global economic activities and became strategically crucial in bilateral and multilateral relations.In this context,economic diplomacy to those developing and emerging economies attracted British government's attention.Various diplomatic economic diplomacy instruments were therefore deployed to combat serious consequences brought by the financial crisis.Britain aims to take opportunities of fast-growing emerging powers,expand overseas markets of economic activities,and build up long-term and stable relationship in order to enhance Britain's advantages.As the formal Brexit process started in 2017,the uncertainty existed between UK-EU relations.Among the diversified foreign relations,the UK has been actively extended,the relations between the UK and developing countries are of greater importance.The economic diplomacy was not a newly invented national strategy.In recent years,related theoretical and empirical researches were more integrated and in-depth than before.Since a few of the latest researches studied on the overall economic diplomacy of an individual country,and none has investigated that of the UK during the post-crisis period in particular.Therefore,by referring to the conceptual and analytical frameworks developed by Okano-Heijmans(2011),this thesis aims to identify the economic diplomacy policies initiated and conducted by government officials and business actors in Britain.Practices on economic diplomacy such as trade and investment,trade deals and foreign aids,are elaborately investigated in this thesis.Moreover,a case study of Britain's relation with the world's largest emerging economy? China exemplifies Britain's economic diplomacy to a specific destination country.The 2007/08 global financial crisis and 2016 Brexit referendum pushed Britain entering into two significant phases of change.In the context of accelerated globalisation,how Britain expanded its external space for development,maintained the sustainable development,and achieved the economic prosperity and security are the focus of this thesis.The application of economic diplomacy frameworks and the analysis of Britain's practices are of theoretical and pragmatic importance.Since the financial crisis,comprehensive and thorough practices are conducted to promote on trade and investment,build up long-term trade relationship,deliver creative national marketing initiatives,and further extend foreign aids,etc.These practices have created a favourable external environment for Britain's economic recovery,built up new overseas trade relations with developing and emerging economies,and inspired a"Global Britain" after its withdrawal from the EU.Britain's economic diplomacy altogether provided long-term support and guarantee for Britain's prosperity and security in the fast-changing global economic environment.