J OF CHIN POLIT SCI (2014) 19:443–444

DOI 10.1007/s11366-014-9318-y
BOOK REVIEW

S. Philip Hsu, Yu-Shan Wu and Suisheng Zhao, eds.,

In Search of China’s Development Model:
Beyond the Beijing Consensus
(London and New York: Routledge, 2011), 252p. $142.50
hardback, $48.60 paperback

Matt Ferchen

Published online: 24 October 2014

# Journal of Chinese Political Science/Association of Chinese Political Studies 2014

This 2011 edited volume represents an effort to move beyond what the editors argue is
the “seriously flawed” concept of the “Beijing Consensus” (BC). In its place Philip
Hsu, the author of the introductory chapter and one of the editors, offers the alternative
concept of “China’s Development Model” (CDM). Although Hsu presents the most
extensive description of this CDM concept, other chapters provide a combination of
specific criticisms of the original BC concept—as first presented by Joshua Cooper
Ramo in 2004—and their own alternative understandings of China’s economic, polit-
ical and social development trajectory over the last 30 plus years. Ultimately the
volume’s attempt to provide a coherent alternative to the BC is less successful than
the various critiques of the concept, yet overall this is a fine collection of individual
efforts worth reading.
Not unusual for an edited volume, the majority of the chapters originated as
conference papers. Somewhat more unusually, the papers were presented at two
separate conferences: one at Academia Sinica in Taipei in 2005 and the other at the
University of Denver in 2008. Three of the Denver conference papers were previously
published in the same 2010 edition of The Journal of Contemporary China. Two of
those in particular, by Barry Naughton and Scott Kennedy, offer trenchant, state-of-the-
art critiques of Ramo’s original BC concept from an economist’s and a political
scientist’s perspectives, respectively. Naughton goes a step further by presenting an
overview of which elements of China’s economic development experience since 1978
are distinctive and which share similarities with other countries’ development ap-
proaches and outcomes.
Aside from the two excellent contributions from Naughton and Kennedy, with
which many readers interested in the BC concept will already be familiar, a number
of the individual chapters stand out. In particular, Hsu’s opening chapter is an ambitious

M. Ferchen (*)
Department of International Relations, Mingzhai Bldg, 100084 Beijing, China
e-mail: matt.ferchen@gmail.com
444 M. Ferchen

and insightful synopsis of many of the volume’s main contributions. One of the most
intriguing and worthwhile elements of Hsu’s chapter is his analysis of how China’s
development model compares with those of other East Asian “developmental states”.
Counter to the growing conventional wisdom that China is “state capitalist” in the
mode of other rapidly developing East Asian economies like Japan and South Korea,
Hsu argues that China is quite unlike its neighboring developmental state cousins. In
particular, he claims that despite departing from neo-classical economic orthodoxy just
as other rapid East Asian developers did, China has been unable to formulate and
implement effective national industrial policies, and its reliance on local governments
and foreign investment to drive development have led to “janus-faced state-led
growth”. Ultimately Hsu labels China a case of “adaptive post-totalitarianism” due to
its socialist legacy, the sheer size of the country, and the often contradictory relation-
ships between central and local government and between state and market forces, the
complex nature of which is not easily captured by facile concepts like the BC.
Other chapters by well-known western China scholars like Thomas Rawski and
Bruce Dickson focus on concerns about “flawed institutions” and corruption, but for
Rawski, the outlook for China’s continued rapid development remains bright. In
addition to Hsu, many of the chapters from the Taiwan scholars provide a solid analysis
of issues such as central banking, career advancement for Western-educated Chinese
returnees, and the role of NGOs in China. However, despite the quality of these
chapters on their own terms, the reader cannot help but feel that an opportunity has
been missed for more of a direct and comprehensive comparison of the Taiwanese and
mainland economic and political developmental experiences.
Another limitation of the study, although through no fault of the authors, is that
events have outpaced some of the research. There is no mention of the financial crisis
and what some see as a Chinese triumphalism about the superiority of a “China Model”
of development. There is also no discussion of the Chinese Communist Party’s new
focus on fundamentally transforming the country’s developmental model to rely less on
exports and state-led investment and more on private, domestic consumption. Yet on
the whole, this volume should be of interest and value to advanced undergraduate as
well as graduate students and faculty with a particular interest in the ongoing debates on
China’s model of economic and political development. The authors may not have put
the concept of the Beijing Consensus to rest for good, but they have certainly
contributed to a more nuanced understanding of a complex and rapidly changing
China.

Matt Ferchen received his Ph.D. from Cornell University, is an Associate Professor in the Department of
International Relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing and is also a resident scholar at the Carnegie-
Tsinghua Center for Global Policy. His research focuses on the domestic and international political economy
of the “China Model” of development. He has published “Whose China Model Is It Anyway? The
Contentious Search for Consensus” in the Review of International Political Economy and is working on a
project about the comparison between China’s “state capitalism” and East Asian “developmental states”.