The debate over the “China Model” is currently a topic of intense interest. In a recent written interview with foreign media, Chinese President Hu Jintao responded by praising China’s political model. His affirmation, reiterating China’s commitment to socialism with Chinese characteristics, demonstrated a level of confidence fitting for a large country. It also served to address the concerns of the academic world and the public in explicit terms.
But what has made the Chinese political model so successful? What defines it as a successful model? And how will it evolve? The benchmark for judgment
There is no such thing as the best political system. Likewise, the world will never be totally dominated by a universal political system. Political systems come in a diverse range of forms. They coexist, borrow from each other and compete with one another. The emergence of this dynamic situation is closely related to several major changes that took place in the world’s population and the layout of nations after World War II. First, the world’s population has increased significantly since the end of the war, from around 2.4 billion to nearly 6.8 billion at present. Second, the number of countries and regions in the world has increased substantially, shooting up from 45 to more than 200. There are two principal reasons for this: the successive independence of colonial countries after the end of World War II and the disintegration of East European countries like the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia after 1990. Third, as the average population per country has dropped from 53 million to 35 million,
the difficulty of running a state has decreased comparatively, and national economies have become more dynamic as a result. Fourth, the rapid integration, regionalization and globalization of the world economy have brought about increasingly intense competition between nations throughout the world. In the midst of such fierce international competition, slow movers are as likely to fail as those who do not progress at all. In essence, the market competition and technological competition that ensue between states boil down to competition between the different systems that they employ. It should be noted the outcome of this competition is not decided by the inherent merits of any given system alone, but by how well a system performs in relation to its competitors.
China’s population has risen from almost 500 million in 1945 to 1.3 billion today. In the same time, China has changed from a poor, backward and disunited nation into a vibrant, prosperous and united global power. But how has China been able to govern itself so successfully? And how should we view China’s success in an international context in order to further demonstrate the suitability and success of its political system?
We cannot rely on our own subjective judgment to do this, nor can we turn to Western values to make such a judgment for us. Instead, we must let the numbers and the facts speak for themselves. By “success” we mean something specific—the term is not being used in its abstract sense. We cannot gauge success on the basis of a single standard, and respective issues, examples and indexes must be viewed specifically in their own contexts. Moreover, “success” cannot be proclaimed on the basis of self-appraisal. It must be confirmed through a process of comparison with other countries.
Our discussion will revolve around two aspects: The first is a long-term developmental comparison between more than 100 countries and regions over the past 30 years(1978-2008), while the second is a shortterm comparison that will look at how G20 countries have coped with the international financial crisis over the last three years(2008-10). These comparisons will endeavor to show China has done better than any other country and its performance is not be matched anywhere else.
China’s political system is not without its shortcomings. Despite this, both historical facts and international comparisons have demonstrated it is suited to China’s basic national conditions and to its current stage of development. Likewise, China’s political system has also proven its adaptability to an increasingly open internal and external environment. It is able to cope with various external challenges and demonstrates clear developmental advantages and a unique edge in the course of fierce international competition. This has been achieved by China’s efforts to restructure and reform its political system over the past 30 years. First, China has developed a set of codes, regulations and processes to govern the transition between its national leaders, which has ensured the stability and continuity of its political leadership. Second, China’s leaders have adhered to the line of “seeking truth from facts.”Third, China has developed a democratic, scientific and regulated approach to public policymaking. These are the fundamental
reasons why China has been so successful. Reasons for development
An international comparison reveals China’s miracle is by no means an accident, nor is it a matter of luck. We can see it is, in fact, founded on the approach that China has taken toward development. There is nothing complex or mysterious about this approach. On the contrary, it is a straightforward approach that follows a natural grain of logic.
We have selected three indices with which we will conduct a comparison of more than 100 countries and regions on the basis of data from the World Bank and the UN Development Program. The first is average annual growth rate of GDP, which reflects performance in terms of economic growth. The second is the coefficient of relative variation in the average annual growth of GDP, which reflects the state of macroeconomic stability. The third is improvement of the human development index (HDI), which reflects the extent of social progress and social equality. Through our comparison, we found all of the 20 fastest growing economies during the period from 1978 to 2008 were developing countries and regions. Of these countries and regions, a total of 13 implemented five-year plans. Moreover, as many as eight of the top 10 fastest growing economies carried out five-year plans (See table). This is no coincidence. Late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping once said planning and market forces are both means of eco- nomic growth. Five-year plans, as a “visible hand,” serve to promote social progress through the provision of public services, while the market economy, as an “invisible hand,” promotes economic growth through the creation of a sound environment for investment. This is essential to understanding the Chinese miracle.
Numerous entrepreneurs and scholars familiar with the situation in China have given their full affirmation to this practice. In November 2009, James McGregor, former Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, told The New York Times“one key thing we (the United States) can learn from China is setting goals, making plans and focusing on pushing the whole country ahead as a nation. The Chinese have five-year plans. They devote themselves to their objectives.”Moreover, in his book China’s Megatrends, futurist John Naisbitt identifies “framing the‘forest’ and letting the ‘trees’ grow” as one of the eight pillars of a New Society (in contrast to Western countries). He writes, “The vision and the goals are being shaped in a top-down, bottom-up process. The government frames the policies and priorities within which citizens create their own roles and their own contributions to the whole, forming a structure that allows and benefits from diversity while sustaining order and harmony.”
During a recent economic forum in Taiwan, I cited the formulation of China’s 12th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (2011-15) to give

a detailed illustration of how the Chinese mainland has realized a democratic, scientific and regulated mechanism for decision making. The plan’s research and formulation process can be roughly divided into 11 steps. It took around two and a half years, during which the opinions of the people were solicited first and then researched centrally. Following this, the views of the people were sought again, which was followed by another round of central research. This process is not secretive in any way. In effect, it has made decision making on the Chinese mainland a public process. In other words, it has “swapped a black box for a see-through box” as we say. The next day, a Taiwanese scholar criticized Taiwan’s policymaking mechanism in the Want Daily. One of his core views was “it is time for Taiwan to learn from the mainland.”
Crisis response
The international financial crisis that originated in the United States in 2008 dealt a severe blow to the global economy. As the crisis spread, a number of the world’s major economies were thrown into turmoil. China can be viewed as something of an exception. As a global challenge, the financial crisis put the response mechanisms of all countries to the test.
We have chosen four major macroscopic economic indicators to conduct a comparison between G20 countries. They are economic growth, inflation rate, unemployment rate and budget balance as percentage of GDP.
Judging from the results, it is evident China delivered the best macroeconomic performance of all G20 countries in 2009. China registered the highest rate of economic growth in 2009, reaching 9.2 percent. In addition, China was one of only seven countries in the world that managed to avert the onset of negative growth. According to the figures, the economic growth rates of the United States, EU countries (on average) and Japan in 2009 were -2.5 percent, -3.9 percent and -5.3 percent, respectively. Moreover, China’s economic growth rate was also as much as 2.7 percentage points higher than its closest competitor—India.
Ironic in retrospect are the seemingly
smug predictions that an influential U.S. publication proceeded to make at the beginning of 2009, the like of “China has already begun an economic decline and perhaps will be worse off than the United States,” “China will not be able to continue its miracle,” and “it (China) is but a caged giant.” Furthermore, on March 2 of the same year, the same magazine openly predicted China’s GDP growth in 2009 would not exceed 4 percent. This prediction was soon (just 10 months) to be smashed by the facts. In what can be considered a global test, China stunned the world by spearheading the
economic recovery, achieving steady growth and meeting its main macroeconomic targets. While this was happening, it was the United States that went into genuine economic decline. During this time, China also closed the gap between its GDP and that of the United States, narrowing the difference from fourfold at the beginning of the crisis to roughly 2.5-fold after the crisis.
So why is China able to cope with the international financial crisis so successfully in comparison with other countries? What have we come to realize? And what lessons can we learn? First, China has gained a full insight into the economic laws of the socialist market economy and the political superiorities of the socialist system. Second, China succeeds in balancing the relationship between government and market forces. In other words, it asserts the leading role of the government while giving full play to the basic role of market forces in the allocation of resources. For example, the stimulating effect of the government’s 4-trillion-yuan ($586 billion) investment in 2009-2010 helped gen- erate more than 10 times this amount in nongovernmental investment. The country’s total investment in fixed assets during this twoyear period reached 50.3 trillion yuan ($7.76 trillion), which effectively ensured the rapid economic growth of the country.
Different nations exhibit different capacities for development and different levels of national strength. They have also demonstrated different levels of performance in their respective responses to the international financial crisis. We can attribute China’s ability to coping successfully with the crisis to five aspects: first, the ability of the Chinese people to study as a whole, respond flexibly to unfavorable situations and excel in competition; second, the highly efficient decision making mechanism of the government; third, the government’s huge capacity for political mobilization; fourth, China’s constantly growing fiscal power; and fifth, the country’s ability to give full reign to the initiative of both central and local governments.
The essence of the international financial
crisis, which originated in the United States and later spread across the world, is an unprecedented crisis of capitalism. China’s success in coping with the international financial crisis has captivated large numbers of American scholars, and encouraged them to engage in self-reflection over this capitalist crisis. One of the most eye-catching instances of this type of self-reflection is a recently published article by American scholar Francis Fukuyama, in which the author says China’s success in navigating the economic crisis was based on the ability of its political system to make large, complex decisions quickly, and make them relatively well, at least in economic policy. In comparison, the United States lacks the capacity to respond rapidly to a crisis. Compelled by fact, Fukuyama’s words can be construed as a partial correction or even a negation of the theories he published 20 years ago in The End of History.
In brief, the “Chinese Path” is not only unprecedented, but is also becoming more and more successful. The best thing we can do is go our own way despite others’ skepticism.