Introduction: Debating the Consensuses

Abstract

China's rapid growth gave birth to the notion of “Beijing Consensus” to conceptualize China's seemingly unorthodox approach to development. The Beijing Consensus has generated much discussion in academia and public forums for some time and was advanced by many as a worthy rival to the neoliberal “Washington Consensus.” Despite the overwhelming interest in this notion, scant legal literature exists on how the Beijing Consensus affects the relationship between law and economic development – and even less literature provides a comprehensive review of its constituent components. Yet, it is the right time for legal scholars to investigate the debate about the two Consensuses and, more importantly, for China to reflect on the understanding of her own success. Summer 2015 witnessed the largest stock market collapse since China began reforming its economy in 1979. The market lost one-third of its value in just two weeks and triggered global panic. I recalled that a colleague once confident of China's economic prospects, then deeply frustrated, said, “The Chinese model is gone!” The contributors of this book go further, in fact a lot further, by contemplating whether the Chinese Model was ever born in the first place. The vacuum of literature was the impetus for this book, a project that aims not only to provide a theoretical account of the Beijing Consensus but, more importantly, also to discuss the Beijing Consensus in respect of specific areas of law. This book does not focus on public law such as human rights, democracy, and constitutionalism – subject matter which has already received much treatment by modern China law studies scholars. Instead, this book focuses on areas of law that have received less attention, but yet, by general consensus, are vital for economic development. Areas such as tax, property, and corporate law are key areas of concern for orthodox law and development theory, including the Washington Consensus. As such, we think these areas deserve their due treatment as the fundamental concern of any law and development scholar interested in the Beijing Consensus is to know what are the institutional configurations of the various subsectors of China's legal system that have contributed to one of the greatest economic transitions in human history. Briefly, we ask, what exactly does the Beijing Consensus (if it truly exists) look like in the context of property, tax, corporate law, and other specific areas of law?