China's rise as a new paradigm in the world economy: preliminaries

Abstract

Drawing on the fast growing literature concerning Chinese development and transition, we sketch a general framework for understanding the ‘China Miracle’ that the ‘conventional wisdom’ and ‘Washington Consensus’ cannot fully explain. Reflecting upon the recent financial crisis and the subsequent worldwide economic downturn, an attempt is made to present a paradigm, inspired by Chinese practice over the past decades, from a historical perspective. We conjecture that a desirable China model may maintain the characteristics of a good economy as proposed in Phelps (2006) with full employment and rights to personal development. With regard to the functioning of freely competitive markets and macroeconomic policy, not only should a China model be able to mimic the rule of law and accountability of liberal western democracies, but it might also possess a mainstream ideology that is deeply rooted in Chinese culture with modern social sciences as theoretical foundations. To divest China of undesirable properties from the existing system, it is necessary to establish a principle-agent relationship that can provide stable governance structure for day-to-day efficient management of the economy and society, and protect the fundamental interests of its citizens when external challenges threaten to weaken social cohesion and political stability.