The Foreign Policy Consequences of Trade: China’s Commercial Relations with Africa and Latin America, 1992--2006 Gustavo A. Flores-Macı ´as Cornell University Sarah E. Kreps Cornell University What are the foreign policy consequences of China’s growing trade relations? In particular, are states that trade more heavily with China more likely to side with it on key foreign policy issues? Does a shift toward China come at the expense of American influence? We evaluate these questions using data on bilateral trade for China and developing countries in Africa and Latin America between 1992 and 2006. Using ordinary and two-stage least squares to control for endogeneity, we present the first systematic evidence that trade with China generates foreign policy consequences. The more states trade with China, the more likely they are to converge with it on issues of foreign policy. This has implications for the United States, whose foreign policy preferences have diverged from those of China during the period of study and who may find it harder to attract allies in international forums. I n the wake of the 2008 economic crisis, 1 a chorus of voices diagnosed the United States as a leader in decline and pointed to China as the likely successor. 2 It is not difficult to identify the source of these prognostications. Prior to the economic crisis, China’s economy was growing quickly relative to the United States, but it was not on track to eclipse the United States until 2041. Since the crisis, differential growth rates have been remarkable. Between Decem- ber 2007 and the third quarter of 2010, the United States’ economy actually lost value. During this time, China’s economy grew by 28%. At this rate, the size of China’s economy would eclipse that of the United States in 2027 (The Economist 2010). Public opinion polls indicate that both developed and developing countries are starting to view China’s economic rise with apprehension, mostly stemming from concerns about the implications of China’s growing trade relationships (Fordham and Kleinberg 2011). Steve Kull (BBC 2011), the director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes, suggested the source of the concern: ‘‘China may feel that it is only natural that it should seek advantages in its trading relations and a larger military footprint.’’ Such advantages may result from China’s trading relations whether it seeks them or not. While opinion polls have begun to query how the international public feels about these growing com- mercial ties, a key question remains unanswered with respect to interstate relations: are countries that trade with China more likely to converge with it on issues of foreign policy? To date, much of the research re- lated to this question has been qualitative in nature, based on case studies (Kirshner 2008; Medeiros et al. 2008; Ross 2006). Such case studies, while rich in detail, are often limited in number and make it difficult to explain the consequences of trade across time and space. We seek to fill this gap by conducting a cross-national study of trade over time to evaluate whether foreign policy consequences follow from China’s growing com- mercial relations and how those consequences affect in- ternational leadership on key foreign policy questions. The Journal of Politics, Vol. 75, No. 2, April 2013, Pp. 357–371 doi:10.1017/S0022381613000066 Ó Southern Political Science Association, 2013 ISSN 0022-3816 1 Appendices for this article are available at http://journals.cambridge.org/JOP. Data and syntax to replicate these analyses will also be made available at http://government.arts.cornell.edu/faculty/flores-macias/ by the date of publication. 2 For example, Nye (2011) quotes a Chinese expert’s view that ‘‘after the financial crisis, many Chinese believe we are rising and the U.S. is declining.’’ 357