The China Lens A Political Economic Analysis Of Changing China

This book grew out of a series of my doctoral essays and discussion with Fulbright scholar, Mr. Tasawar Baig and Professor David Earnest at Old Dominion University. Some ideas and thoughts were also inspired by Professor Robert Putnam at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government and Professor Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski (former US National Security Advisor) when they did lectures and special discussion with me at Old Dominion University in 2009 and 2012, respectively. In The Third Wave (1991), Samuel Huntington explains various sociopolitical factors caused radical political changes in developing countries. His analysis shows that for Africa, the main obstacle for building democracy is economy, While for East Asia and the Middle East, the major obstacle are culture and religion. Huntington’s analysis oversimplified the driving factors of democratization in specific case, such as China, a hybrid of Capitalist economy and communist politics. This paper measures the current democratization of Chinese politics from three perspectives: social capital, rapid economic development and radical social movement. Thus, the grand question is whether these factors can lead to a regime change in China? The author draws a conclusion that the radical political change is possible but not desirable in Chinese politics. In the eyes of rising Chinese middle Class, a Singaporean political transformation or South Korean democratization is more favored than radical democratization. Following the US Presidential election, China went through a one week meeting of the 18th National Congress starting on November 8, 2012. Without much surprise, Xi replaced Hu, becoming the core of Chinese communist power. The power transition seems to be smooth in Chinese media coverage. However, anecdotes, rumors, unofficial reports and foreign news exposed the political battle behind the stage. President Xi is now facing a stark different situation compared to Hu. Today, China is the world’s second largest economy. At the same time, China is experiencing rising mass disturbance every year. As a non-democracy, leaders’ past experience, network and personality can greatly influence state policies. With more people getting rich and educated, the mass claim the mismatch between Chinese politics and economy. Other than changing domestic Chinese politics, China has drawn much attention internationally. China’s presence in Africa and the Middle East tightens the nerves of U.S. policy makers. Is China a peaceful or benign riser? Where is China heading toward? What interests are Chinese companies pursuing and what strategies are they using globally? The book investigates these questions in different chapters. Globalization is the current trend. As a propeller, China’s participation in global trade greatly shapes world order. In return, global trade also produced effects on China’s domestic labor market, particularly on the traditional Chinese women labors. This book is a sound recipe integrating both faces of China domestically and internationally.

This book examines Chinese political economy spanning from 1800 to to the dawn of the 21st century, shedding new light on our understanding of the reasons and impact of socio-political and socio-economic changes in China. Crossing over the three disciplines of history, politics and economics, the analyses China’s ideology, politics, and the economy using state-building as the key theme and puts the emphasis on China’s internal factors and mechanisms instead of the influence from Western imperialism or Japanese colonialism. It pays close attention to the movers and shakers inside Chinese society and carefully reveals historical contingencies which lend the reader a unique and radically different re-interpretation of China’s recent history.

An FT SUMMER READ 2020 The forces of globalization have transformed the world economically, but in the West politics is becoming increasingly fractured as living standards stagnate for all but the very wealthy. As a result, alienation and nationalism are on the rise. China, in the meantime, has become the most powerful economy in the world from the same forces of globalization which have imprisoned the west. Here, Grzegorz W. Kolodko parses the economic system in China and brings his uniquely clear and far sighted analysis to bear on the global economy. Through a qualitative and extensive quantitative economic analysis of the global economy, and it's tilt towards Asia, Kolodko offers prescriptions on how the west can learn from China's approach, and make globalization work for citizens once more. An essential book for scholars and students of political economy, from one of the West's most authoritative scholars and practitioners. Translated by Joanna Luczak

In revisiting the forty year history of reforms to China’s state-owned enterprises (SOE), the book assesses the experiences of this process of reform and scrutinizes how this has helped advance the country’s economy overall. The author finds that China’s SOE reform not only commits to institutional innovation within the corporation in terms of operating mechanisms, management structure, legal organization and the economic system of the enterprise; but that it is also underpinned by a series of policies that highlight an increasing market orientation. The measures have given rise to a benign interaction between enterprise reform and market development, while switching the SOE’s role from appendages of government organs under a planned economic system to more autonomous entities that integrate public ownership and the market economy. In this regard, SOE reform’s success in constructing a modern enterprise system serves as the micro-foundation and core of an improved socialist market economic system. The book will appeal to academics and students interested in political economy and the Chinese economy, with particular reference to SOE reform and the recent economic transition in China.

In the past decade, China was able to carry out economic reform without political reform, while the Soviet Union attempted the opposite strategy. How did China succeed at economic market reform without changing communist rule? Susan Shirk shows that Chinese communist political institutions are more flexible and less centralized than their Soviet counterparts were. Shirk pioneers a rational choice institutional approach to analyze policy-making in a non-democratic authoritarian country and to explain the history of Chinese market reforms from 1979 to the present. Drawing on extensive interviews with high-level Chinese officials, she pieces together detailed histories of economic reform policy decisions and shows how the political logic of Chinese communist institutions shaped those decisions. Combining theoretical ambition with the flavor of on-the-ground policy-making in Beijing, this book is a major contribution to the study of reform in China and other communist countries.

China is well-known as the largest recipient of foreign direct investment among developing countries. Little is known so far of the fact that China has become (quietly) one of the most significant third world investors in the global economy. This book traces the evolutionary path of China's outward investment activities and examines the political economy of the rapid rise of China's global businesses in the context of the economic reforms since 1978. The analysis of changing policy regimes for China's outward investment is complemented by detailed investigations of the rise and operation of three pioneering Chinese multinationals to illustrate this new thrust of China's engagement with the global economy. China's global reach examined in this study explores issues concerning China's creative responses to globalisation and the processes through which China his becoming a globalised state. The first ever book-length study of China's global investment activities, this book fills a significant gap in the literature on China's economic transformation and the rise of multinational corporations from developing countries.

Revised from the first incarnation, which appeared in 1992 as The Economy of China-Illustrated, First Edition, by Sososha Ltd, this edition contains completely new information on changes in the Chinese economy since the early 1990s as well as new statistics and analysis of finance, public finance, and Sino-US relations. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

An accessible, introductory text on contemporary China, this book covers the social, economic, and political factors responsible for China's revolutionary changes, and interweaves this structural analysis with a consideration of social changes at the micro and macro levels.