‘Old’ Chinese debates on economic development

Abstract

This chapter outlines many ideas shared between the historical Chinese debates and more current Western proposals at each level of analysis. The literature on China’s economic development since the beginning of the reforms in the late 1970s is very rich, sometimes concentrating on how this development has shown ‘Chinese characteristics’. First, certain of the ‘old’ Chinese approaches tackled the inter-relations between productive development and international power relations. Finally, the ‘old’ Chinese debates reviewed by Olga Borokh present normative reflections on the conceptualisation of development and how it should be culturally founded. The chapter intends to bolster the argument that those ‘old’ Chinese debates have remained relevant, both to Western advances in economic development thought and to current development patterns and policies in post-Maoist China. Future research on the history of economic thought in China will hopefully permit more nuanced comparisons between Chinese and Western scholars, as well as between old and new development issues.