Challenges Facing Chinese Political Development. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014. xviii, 301 pp. (Figures, tables.) US$100.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-7391-9226-9.
This volume is the product of a collaborative effort between the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica, and the Department of Political Science of the University of Virginia in November 2011. The organizing theme of the volume concerns the issue of “models” of Chinese development. The book is divided into four parts, each providing a somewhat different take on understanding Chinese models of development. Part 1 focuses on Chinese models and paradigms of development studies with contributions by Yun-han Chu and Xiaoming Huang. The second part, on Chinese models in comparative perspective, has essays by Yu-Shan Wu, Allen Lynch, and Brantly Womack. Part 3 looks at regional models of development in China, with two essays by Tse-Kang Leng and Szu-chien Hsu and Hans Tung. The final section looks at models of Chinese external relations and global governance. Here, David Kang, Rumi Aoyama, and Herman Schwartz provide the chapters.
As with most edited volumes, the contributions are uneven. I particularly liked Yun-han Chu’s essay on regime legitimacy in China; Yu-Shan Wu’s essay comparing China’s development models with the historical experience of the Republic of China (both on the mainland and on Taiwan) and the thought of Sun Yat-sen; Tse-Kang Leng’s examination of cultural industry development in different areas of Nanjing; Szu-chien Hsu and Hans Tung’s examination of local autonomy under the 2008 Chinese stimulus package; and David Kang’s essay on hegemony, power, and history in international relations.
A number of the essays in this volume are revisions of papers that have been published in English elsewhere (Chu and Womack) and others have been published in other languages or summarize larger works by the authors. In some cases, the papers have been updated to include data from 2013, but in others, there seems to have been little added since the original conference in 2011.
The editors state in the preface that there is “no single ‘Chinese model’ to cover all dimensions of this rising power” (vii). However, while there is no single model, a central problem with this volume is there is no agreement on what exactly a model is, or what makes a model a model. Thus, for many of the essays, one might easily substitute “the Chinese experience” (or experiences), the “Chinese case(s),” or even Chinese history. Is it a distinctly Chinese model or models, or does China fit or not fit some other “type” or category? Some do try to think about the issue of model or models more or less explicitly (Xiaoming Huang in particular), but there is no consistent effort to unify the essays around what exactly a model is or might be. Several of the authors do not seem to pay any attention to the issue of whether (and in what respects) China is a model at all. Without a more explicit consideration of what constitutes a model, there is no standard of comparison and evaluation common to all of these essays, so the essays stand on their own as opposed to being in a more explicit dialogue with each other. The whole is not greater than the sum of its parts.
Several questions might have been used to organize this volume more effectively around the issue of Chinese models. First, can we extrapolate from China’s reform experience core, enduring analytical elements of that experience? How do we know what is the core or enduring? Given that China’s reforms and changes remain dynamic, how is it possible to isolate the underlying core elements of a model? Second, is the model time-bound or not? Are there a series of “models,” one after another? Allen Lynch compares Deng’s reforms of the 1980s with Gorbachev’s reforms in the Soviet Union (though his title suggests he covers the 1965 to 2010 period). But the Chinese reforms of the 1980s were quite different from the reforms of the 1990s or 2000s. Which set of experiences are truly a model, or put differently, if each set of reform experiences is a model, is there any model at all?
Third, we might ask whether the model is replicable in other countries or localities? Can the model be diffused or transplanted without doing undo damage to the model when there is an attempt to emulate it in other contexts? If it cannot, then in what sense is it a model, as opposed to a unique case? Fourth, in addition to the question of transferability, we might try to probe what political purposes are served by labelling something as a model. Who benefits or is privileged by such a label? What experiences are excluded when a model becomes a particular reification of reality? Several of the authors discuss or mention the “Beijing Consensus” though none seems to see this as a model. Presumably, the Beijing Consensus calls for authoritarian politics and state capitalist approaches, thereby de-emphasizing democracy and more laissez-faire forms of capitalism. Is that enough to qualify as a model? If it is not, why isn’t it?
A number of the essays in this volume provide some fruitful material to contemplate as we think about comparing China to other places or experiences, and what makes China’s experience during the post-Mao period unique. But this book represents perhaps a starting point for those endeavours, and leaves us far from any definitive conclusions.
David Bachman
University of Washington, Seattle, USA
pp. 405-407