In recent commentary on global economic governance seeking to explain the outcome of the huge recession of 2008, arguments abound about the remarkable staying power of American hegemony and the formidable resilience of the liberal international order. This somewhat myopic argument seriously neglects Sino-western collaboration – within the framework of what I contend is an ordoliberal turn. Two questions were posed. First, why was the US-led order and the global neoliberal project not pushed back during the worldwide financial crisis of 2008? Second, why does contemporary global capitalism continue to be infused by neoliberal thinking, despite the 2008 crisis? It is argued that China must be conceptualized as neoliberal, albeit in a state-capitalist form, otherwise the surprising robustness of the global neoliberal project is exaggeratedly credited to the United States. Moreover, China's evolving ordoliberal political economy is a crucial part of mutual interdependence and global economic governance suppor...