The 'China model' and the global crisis: From Friedrich List to a Chinese mode of governance?

International Affairs

Volumn 87, Issue 6, 2011, Pages 1323-1343

  Breslin, Shaun ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 82055183839     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: 14682346     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2346.2011.01039.x     Document Type: Article

References (93)

1. More formally, Adam Smith, An enquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations (London: Strahan, 1776).
2. The words are those of the US House of Representatives Sub-Committee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations at its hearing on 'China's influence in Africa', July 2005, http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa22658.000/hfa22658_0f.htm, accessed 13 Aug. 2009.
3. Ha-Joon Chang, Kicking away the ladder: development strategy in historical perspective (London: Anthem, 2005).
4. A four-volume work first published in 1841. In preparing this article I have used the open access online version available via the McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/list/index.html, accessed 15 Oct. 2008.
5. Barry Naughton, 'China's distinctive system: can it be a model for others?', Journal of Contemporary China 19: 65, 2010, pp. 437-60.
6. For East Asia, see Susan Windybank, 'The China syndrome', Policy, 21: 2, 2005, p. 28; for Africa
7. Drew Thompson, 'Economic growth and soft power: China's Africa strategy', Jamestown Foundation China Brief 4: 24, 2004.
8. Naazneen Barma and Ely Ratner, 'China's illiberal challenge: the real threat posed by China isn't economic or military-it's ideological', Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, no. 2, Fall 2006, pp. 56-68.
9. Francis Fukuyama, The end of history and the last man (London: Penguin, 1992), p. xiii.
10. Joshua Cooper Ramo, 'China has discovered its own economic consensus', Financial Times, 8 May 2004.
11. Joshua Ramo, The Beijing Consensus: notes on the new physics of Chinese power (London: Foreign Policy Centre, 2004). Not to be confused with a book published under the same title published six years later that sees the Chinese 'model' in a much less positive light: Stefan Halper, The Beijing Consensus: how China's authoritarian model will dominate the twenty-first century (New York: Basic Books, 2010).
12. Ramo, 'China has discovered its own economic consensus'.
13. See Scott Kennedy, 'The myth of the Beijing Consensus', Journal of Contemporary China 19: 65, 2010, pp. 461-77.
14. Qian Gang, 'How should we read China's "discourse of greatness"?', China Media Project, 2010, http://cmp.hku.hk/2010/02/23/4565/, accessed 5 Jan. 2011.
15. A collection of 106 papers discussing and defining this model held by the China Elections and Governance project has been particularly useful in developing this article. I have grouped these together for ease of access via http://tinyurl.com/chinamodel.
16. We should note, however, that this was the 60th anniversary of the PRC and that Pan Wei's book on the six decades of CCP rule was called The China model, which may also have had an impact on the spread of the term as people commented on this book. See Pan Wei, ed., Zhongguo moshi: jiedu renmin gongheguo 60nian [The China model: understanding 60 years of the People's Republic of China] (Beijing: Central Translation Press, 2009).
17. Central Committee, Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu jiaqiang dangde zhizheng nengli jianshe de jueding [The Party Central Committee decision on strengthening governing capacity construction], http://www.china.com.cn/chinese/2004/Sep/668376.htm, accessed 13 Nov. 2004.
18. Ding Xueliang, 'Jingti zhongguo moshi de "manxingbing"' [Watch out for the chronic illness of the China model], Nanfang Zhoumou, 9 Dec. 2010, p. 31.
19. Yao Yang, 'The end of the Beijing Consensus? Can China's model of authoritarian growth survive?', Foreign Affairs Online, 2 Feb. 2010, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65947/the-end-of-the-beijing-consensus, accessed 5 March 2010.
20. Shaun Breslin, 'China and the crisis: global power, domestic caution and local initiative', Contemporary Politics 17: 2, 2011, pp. 185-200.
21. 'China model', The Economist, http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/179, 13 Aug. 2011, accessed 13 Aug. 2011.
22. Eva Paus, Penelope Prime and Jon Western, 'China rising: a global transformation?', in Eva Paus, Penelope Prime and Jon Western, eds, Global giant: is China changing the rules of the game? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p. 17.
23. See also Robert Wade, 'After the crisis: industrial policy and the developmental state in low-income countries', Global Policy 1: 2, 2010, pp. 150-61.
24. Richard Stubbs, 'The East Asian developmental state and the Great Recession: evolving contesting coalitions', Contemporary Politics 17: 2, 2011, pp. 151-66.
25. John Whalley and Dana Medianu, 'The deepening China-Brazil economic relationship', CESIFO Working Paper 3289, 2010, http://www.ifo.de/portal/page/portal/DocBase_Content/WP/WP-CESifo_Working_Papers/wp-cesifo-2010/wp-cesifo-2010-12/cesifo1_wp3289.pdf, accessed 12 May 2011.
26. Zhou Xiaochuan, 'Reform the international monetary system', 23 March 2009, http://www.bis.org/review/r090402c.pdf, accessed 21 Feb. 2010.
27. This piece was posted on the Qiushi discussion page and was erroneously credited with being published in the Qiushi journal, which is the official theoretical journal of the CCP. It was thus mistakenly taken to represent official policy: Xu Yunhong, 'Zhongguo yingdui meiguo duihua ezhi qingxiang zhengce de zhanlue' [China's strategy in response to the US containment policy towards China', Qiushi Lilun Wang [Qiushi Theory Network], 10 Dec. 2010, http://www.qstheory.cn/lg/zl/201012/t20101210_59023.htm, accessed 4 Jan. 2011.
28. Pan Wei, 'Western system versus Chinese system', University of Nottingham Contemporary China Centre Briefing Series 61, July 2010, p. 9.
29. 'China model', The Economist.
30. Wang Shaoguang argues that this is one of the key strengths of policy reform in China-not just in the current era, but under Mao as well. But the key difference now, in comparison to previous eras, is the much more open and plural political system that allows a variety of different voices to be heard and is unrestrained by 'political correctness', there being no longer any need to prove revolutionary credentials. See Wang Shaoguang, 'Adapting by learning: the evolution of China's rural health care financing', Modern China 35: 4, 2009, pp. 370-404.
31. I am grateful to Wang Zhengyi for these comments and ideas communicated through discussions in Beijing in 2009 and 2010.
32. John Donaldson, 'Why do similar areas adopt different developmental strategies? A study of two puzzling Chinese provinces', Journal of Contemporary China 18: 60, 2009, pp. 421-44.
33. Yao Yang, 'Shifou cunzai yige zhongguo moshi' [Is there a China model?], Tianyi Network, 8 March 2008, first accessed 3 June 2008 from a source no longer available; accessed 13 June 2011 from http://www.bjzmw.cn/viewnews-3038.html. The translation of [zhongxing zhengfu] as 'disinterested' is Yao Yang's own preferred translation in email communication with the author.
34. Sebastian Heilmann, 'Maximum tinkering under uncertainty: unorthodox lessons from China', Modern China 35: 4, 2009, p. 450.
35. See also Sebastian Heilmann, 'Policy experimentation in China's economic rise', Studies of Comparative and International Development 43: 1, 2008, pp. 1-26.
36. Xin Li, Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard and Michael Jacobsen, 'Redefining Beijing Consensus: ten general principles', Copenhagen Discussion Paper 29 (Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School, 2009).
37. Along with the 'correct' visionary policies of Deng Xiaoping. See Ma Depu, 'Jianjinxing, zizhuxing yu qiangzhengfu-fenxi zhongguo gaige moshi de zhengzhi shijiao [Incrementalism, autonomy and strong government: a political analysis of China's reform model]', Dangshi Bocai, no. 5, 2005, pp. 19-23. This is one of the earliest attempts I have found in Chinese at defining the Chinese model.
38. Sun Liping, 'Societal transition: new issues in the field of the sociology of development', Modern China 34: 1, 2008, pp. 106-107.
39. Including calls to pay less attention to Adam Smith and to consider the national political economy of List more seriously. See Han Deqiang, Pengzhuang: quanqiuhua xianjing yu zhongguo xianshí xuanze [Collision: the globalisation trap and China's real choice] (Beijing: Economic Management Press, 2000).
40. Tian Yu Cao, 'Conclusion: the theory and practice of the Chinese model', in Tian Yu Cao, ed., The Chinese model of modern development (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 303.
41. Suisheng Zhao, 'The China model: can it replace the western model of modernization?', Journal of Contemporary China 19: 65, 2010, p. 422.
42. Zhang Weiwei, 'Yige giji de pouxi: zhongguo moshi ji qi yiyi' [Analysis of a miracle: the China model and its significance]', Qiushi, no. 6, 2011, http://www.qstheory.cn/hqwg/2011/201106/201103/t20110325_74156. htm, accessed 27 March 2011. For an English translation, see David Bandurski, 'Zhang vs Yang on the China model', China Media Project, 2011, http://cmp.hku.hk/2011/03/29/11205/, accessed 12 June 2011. Bandurski's translation uses 'collective fear' rather than 'collective psychology' for jiti xinli.
43. Discussions with Jia Qingguo, Beijing University, Feb. 2009.
44. Zhang Weiwei, 'Analysis of a miracle'.
45. 'China model', The Economist.
46. Arthur Kroeber and Rosealea Yao, 'Large and in charge', Financial Times, 14 July 2008.
47. World Food Programme, Hunger and markets (London: Earthscan, 2009), p. 31.
48. Yasheng Huang, 'Rethinking the Beijing Consensus', Asia Policy, no. 11, 2011, pp. 1-26.
49. See e.g. Gong Yang, ed., Sichao: zhongguo xinzuopai ju qi yingxiang [Ideological trends: China's new left and its influence] (Beijing: China Social Science Press, 2003).
50. Dieter Ernst and Barry Naughton, 'China's emerging industrial economy: insights from the IT industry', in Christopher A. McNally, ed., China's emergent political economy: capitalism in the dragon's lair (New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 39-50.
51. Randall Peerenboom, China modernizes: threat to the West or model for the rest? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
52. Kennedy, 'The myth of the Beijing Consensus', p. 471.
53. Wang Yong, 'Chinese developmental road and Sino-African relationship in the context of the global financial crisis', in The global financial crisis: international impacts and responses (Beijing: Beijing University, Beijing Forum Organizing Committee, 2009).
54. Young Nam Cho and Jong Ho Jeong, 'China's soft power', Asia Survey 48: 3, p. 464.
55. David Levi-Faur, 'Friedrich List and the political economy of the nation-state', Review of International Political Economy 4: 1, 1997, pp. 154-78.
56. List always referred to England and the English rather than Britain and the British. See Friedrich List, The national system of political economy, book 4: The Politics, ch. 33, http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/het/list/list4, accessed 15 Oct. 2008.
57. Henry Clay, 'The American system', in Robert Byrd and Wendy Wolff, eds, The Senate 1789-1989, vol. 3: Classic speeches 1830-1993 (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1994), p. 91.
58. Clay, 'The American system', p. 86 (emphasis added).
59. Iwata Masukazu, Okubo Toshimichi: the Bismarck of Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964).
60. It might also be worth mentioning here that at various points after the Second World War the North Korean and Romanian economies were the fastest growing in the world, and that the reconstruction of Europe owed more to planning than to free markets.
61. Bruce Cumings, 'The origins and development of the Northeast Asia political economy: industrial sectors, product cycles and political consequences', International Organization 38: 1, Winter 1984, pp. 1-22.
62. Karl Marx, unpublished article on Friedrich List's book Das nationale System der politischen Ökonomie, 1845, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/03/list.htm, accessed 1 June 2009; Karl Marx, Critique of political economy, part 1: The commodity, 1859, n. 8, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/ critique-pol-economy/ch01.htm, accessed 1 June 2009.
63. Ben Selwyn, 'An historical materialist appraisal of Friedrich List and his modern-day followers', New Political Economy 14: 2, 2009, p. 165.
64. He specifically cites the following: Robert Kuhn, How China's leaders think: the inside story of China's reform and what this means for the future (Singapore: Wiley, 2010)
65. John Naisbitt and Doris Naisbitt, China's megatrends: the 8 pillars of a new society (New York: HarperCollins, 2010)
66. Martin Jacques, When China rules the world: the end of the western world and the birth of a new global order (London: Penguin, 2009); Bruce Dickson, 'Who consents to the "Beijing Consensus"? Crony communism in China', 2009, http://www.cecc.gov/pages/roundtables/2009/20090522/DicksonCrony_CommunismInChina.pdf. Criticisms of this last work seem to be based on a misreading, confusing what Dickson discusses with what he actually argues himself.
67. Bruce Dickson, 'Who consents to the "Beijing Consensus"? Crony communism in China', 2009, http://www.cecc.gov/pages/roundtables/2009/20090522/DicksonCrony_CommunismInChina.pdf. Criticisms of this last work seem to be based on a misreading, confusing what Dickson discusses with what he actually argues himself.
68. Yang Jisheng, 'Wo kan "zhongguo moshi"' [How I see the 'China model'], Yanhuang Chunqiu, 11 Jan. 2011, http://www.sinovision.net/blog/56cun/details/55784.html, accessed 25 Jan. 2011. I am grateful to David Kelly for sending me his translation of this article. An English language version is now available via the China Media Project at http://cmp.hku.hk/2011/03/29/11205/, accessed 3 April 2011.
69. Naughton, 'China's distinctive system'.
70. A point he made to me in email discussions over the nature of a China model.
71. See also Luo Jianbo and Zhang Xiaomin, 'China's African policy and its soft power', AntePodium, 2009, http://www.victoria.ac.nz/atp/articles/ArticlesWord/JianboXiaomin-2009.doc, accessed 13 Jan. 2010. Moshi can be variously translated as 'mode', 'model', 'pattern', 'standard' or 'method', though it is now almost always translated into English as 'model'-particularly when following the word 'China'.
72. Shen Li and Bai Qunying, 'Jiedu zhongguo jingji moshi' [Analysis of China's economic model], Guangming Ribao, 15 May 2006.
73. Pan Wei, 'The Chinese model of development', Foreign Policy Centre, London, 11 Oct. 2007, http://fpc.org.uk/fsblob/888.pdf, accessed 3 Jan. 2008 (emphasis added).
74. Shen and Bai, 'Analysis of China's economic model'.
75. John Williamson, 'The impact of the financial crisis on development thinking', Max Fry Annual Lecture, University of Birmingham, 13 Oct. 2010, http://www.iie.com/publications/papers/williamson20101013.pdf, accessed 4 Jan. 2011.
76. On the idea of Occidentalism, see James Carrier, Occidentalism: images of the West (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995); Alastair Bonnett, The idea of the West: culture, politics and history (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004); Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit, Occidentalism: a short history of anti-westernism (London: Atlantic, 2004). Chen Xiaomei uses the term 'Occidentalism' in a different way, to describe how western cultural discourses were internalized in China in the 1980s: Chen Xiaomei, Occidentalism: a theory of counter-discourse in post-Mao China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
77. James Carrier, Occidentalism: images of the West (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995)
78. Alastair Bonnett, The idea of the West: culture, politics and history (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004)
79. Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit, Occidentalism: a short history of anti-westernism (London: Atlantic, 2004). Chen Xiaomei uses the term 'Occidentalism' in a different way, to describe how western cultural discourses were internalized in China in the 1980s: Chen Xiaomei, Occidentalism: a theory of counter-discourse in post-Mao China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
80. Qin Yaqing, 'Guoji guanxi lilun de hexin wenti yu Zhongguo xuepai de shengcheng' [Core problems of international relationship theory and the construction of a Chinese school], Zhongguo Shehui Kexue [Social Sciences in China], no. 3, 2005, pp. 165-76; Hu Zongshan, Zhongguo de heping jueqi: lilun, lishi yu zhanlue [China's peaceful rise: theory, history and strategy] (Beijing: World Knowledge, 2006).
81. Hu Zongshan, Zhongguo de heping jueqi: lilun, lishi yu zhanlue [China's peaceful rise: theory, history and strategy] (Beijing: World Knowledge, 2006).
82. Sheng Ding, The dragon's hidden wings: how China rises with its soft power (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2008).
83. David Bandurski, 'Zhang vs Yang on the China model', China Media Project, 2011, http://cmp.hku.hk/2011/03/29/11205/, accessed 18 May 2011.
84. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Langley, 1840); free access online version available at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/toc_indx.html, accessed 4 June 2009.
85. Charles Krauthammer, Democratic realism: an American foreign policy for a unipolar world (Washington DC: AEI Press, 2004).
86. Bandurski, 'Zhang vs Yang'.
87. Warren Cohen, 'China's rise in historical perspective', Journal of Strategic Studies 30: 4-5, 2007, p. 703. A similar analysis is at the heart of Yuan-Kang Wang, Harmony and war: Confucian culture and Chinese power politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).
88. Arif Dirlik, 'Confucius in the borderlands: global capitalism and the reinvention of Confucianism', Boundary 2, 22: 3, 1995, pp. 229-73.
89. Andrew Scobell, China's use of military force: beyond the Great Wall and the Long March (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
90. Yang, 'How I see the China model'.
91. Chang, Kicking away the ladder.
92. Zhao Suisheng, Chinese foreign policy: pragmatism and strategic behavior (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2004), p. 259.
93. Shaun Breslin, 'China's emerging global role: dissatisfied responsible great power', Politics 30: s1, 2010, pp. 52-62.