EAI Working Paper Globalization, Development Strategies and Social Welfare for the Rural Sector in China since the 2000s Eun Kyong Choi, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Eun Kyong Choi presents an alternative causal mechanism through which globalization leads to social welfare expansion for non-democratic countries. Emphasizing that the existing compensation mechanism may work for democracies, Choi looks at the case of China with the state’s priority on economic growth to explain that the state’s shift from export-oriented to domestic consumption-driven development strategy in response to volatility in exports induced social welfare expansion to the rural sector.