Forecasting China S Future

China’s future development is likely to have a huge impact on twenty-first century global outcomes. It is therefore surprising that, thus far, so little attention has been given to comparing and evaluating expert forecasts of China’s future in the post-Mao era. This book presents an illuminating and comprehensive summary record of contrasting and competing expert forecasts and judgements about the major issues confronting China within four principal domains – political, economic, environmental, and international. After considering the principal forecasting methods available to experts, the author comments critically on the degree of success achieved in using those methods and emphasises the confusion created by the polarisation of opinion and by the failure of many experts to accept the high degree of uncertainty that characterises most of the key issues. The book recommends a new approach based on the study of a hierarchy of critical uncertainties and on continuing analysis of opposing expert opinions about these uncertainties. It emphasises the potential for both positive and negative outcomes for these critical uncertainties, and the importance of maximising the potential for positive outcomes through improved analytical and policy frameworks. Providing insights for specialists and non-specialists into the most critical issues that will determine China’s future direction, this book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of political, economic, environmental, and international relations issues in China and Asia, as well as to readers in business and government.

China has become one of the most important forces in the world today, and this book combines views of her internal and external political relations, of the fundamentals of her economic development, and of the political, social and economic pressures that will influence her future.

China has scored huge successes during the last quarter century and has already become a global phenomenon. Twenty-five years ago, however, China's remarkable accomplishments were largely unforeseen. This volume, consisting of nine essays based on "best informed guesses" that are guided by the contributors' concrete understanding of current trends, posits that the future of China is an open-ended question that may not be answered with either a threat or a collapse. All of the contributors provide a set of scenarios and order them in terms of likelihood, including the seven factors they have identified as central to charting China's future: the Communist Party, local electoral reforms and rule of law, the federalist possibility, social unrest, foreign policy orientations, Sino-American relations, and the Taiwan conundrum. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand China as it rises in power on the world stage.

China's Futures cuts through the sometimes confounding and unfounded speculation of international pundits and commentators to provide readers with an important yet overlooked set of complex views concerning China's future: views originating within China itself. Daniel Lynch seeks to answer the simple but rarely asked question: how do China's own leaders and other elite figures assess their country's future? Many Western social scientists, business leaders, journalists, technocrats, analysts, and policymakers convey confident predictions about the future of China's rise. Every day, the business, political, and even entertainment news is filled with stories and commentary not only on what is happening in China now, but also what Western experts confidently think will happen in the future. Typically missing from these accounts is how people of power and influence in China itself imagine their country's developmental course. Yet the assessments of elites in a still super-authoritarian country like China should make a critical difference in what the national trajectory eventually becomes. In China's Futures, Lynch traces the varying possible national trajectories based on how China's own specialists are evaluating their country's current course, and his book is the first to assess the strengths and weaknesses of "predictioneering" in Western social science as applied to China. It does so by examining Chinese debates in five critical issue-areas concerning China's trajectory: the economy, domestic political processes and institutions, communication and the Internet (arrival of the "network society"), foreign policy strategy, and international soft-power (cultural) competition.

As it emerges from centuries of social, military, and political strife, China--which represents one fifth of the world's population and its third largest economy--is poised to play a major role in global business. But what will that role be? In this book, two experts, who have created business scenarios for some of the world's largest organizations--including Royal Dutch/Shell, AT&T, IBM, and Motorola--present three very informed versions of how China's future may unfold in the coming years and what it means to the rest of the world. These scenarios provide a foundation on which today's companies can build business strategies for years to come. Click here to read the preface from this book.

This is the latest Joint Economic Committee volume on the Chinese economy. With the current state of US-China relations and Hong Kong's accession in 1997, the study should provide policy makers in the USA with a useful tool in guiding economic policy toward China.

At the upcoming 20th Party Congress, which opens Sunday in China, Xi Jinping is expected to be confirmed as the country’s Secretary General for an unprecedented third term. At a time of international instability caused by the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine, as well as rising competition between international superpowers, the Chinese leadership is called to increase the country’s international standing, while ensuring economic growth at the domestic level. However, achieving these goals will not be without challenges.This Report analyses China’s hard road to international prestige and development. Which prospects for China’s economic growth? Which obstacles to its rise at the global level? To which extent can the Party steer the country’s direction?

China's future is arguably the most consequential question in global affairs. Having enjoyed unprecedented levels of growth, China is at a critical juncture in the development of its economy, society, polity, national security, and international relations. The direction the nation takes at this turning point will determine whether it stalls or continues to develop and prosper. Will China be successful in implementing a new wave of transformational reforms that could last decades and make it the world's leading superpower? Or will its leaders shy away from the drastic changes required because the regime's power is at risk? If so, will that lead to prolonged stagnation or even regime collapse? Might China move down a more liberal or even democratic path? Or will China instead emerge as a hard, authoritarian and aggressive superstate? In this new book, David Shambaugh argues that these potential pathways are all possibilities - but they depend on key decisions yet to be made by China's leaders, different pressures from within Chinese society, as well as actions taken by other nations. Assessing these scenarios and their implications, he offers a thoughtful and clear study of China's future for all those seeking to understand the country's likely trajectory over the coming decade and beyond.