Suisheng Zhao

The China Model: can it replace the Western model of modernization?

Chinas economic success under an authoritarian political system in the past 30 years has raised a question about whether the China model will replace the Western model of modernization. This paper seeks answers to this question by exploring to what extent China offers a distinctive model of economic and political development and whether the China model represents a successful co-existence of a free market and an authoritarian state in order to maintain economic growth and political stability, as well as discussing what the appeals and limitations of the China model are.

China's Pragmatic Nationalism: Is It Manageable?

Although Beijing is hardly above exploiting nationalist sentiment, it has generally used nationalism pragmatically, tempered by diplomatic prudence. The question remains, can Beijing keep this nationalism reined in, or will it begin to accelerate out of control?

Foreign Policy Implications of Chinese Nationalism Revisited: the strident turn

This paper revisits the debate about foreign policy implications of Chinese nationalism in the context of Chinas increasingly confrontational and assertive behavior in recent years. It argues that while the Chinese government made effective efforts to control popular nationalism and Chinese foreign policy was therefore not dictated by emotional nationalistic rhetoric before 2008, it has become more willing to follow the popular nationalist calls to take a confrontational position against the Western powers and to adopt tougher measures in maritime territorial disputes with its neighbors. This strident turn is partially because the government is increasingly responsive to public opinion, but more importantly because of the convergence of Chinese state nationalism and popular nationalism calling for a more muscular Chinese foreign policy. Enjoying an inflated sense of empowerment supported by its new quotient of wealth and military capacities, and terrified of an uncertain future due to increasing social, economic and political tensions at home, the communist state has become more willing to play to the popular nationalist gallery in pursuing the so-called core national interests. These developments have complicated Chinas diplomacy, creating a heated political environment to harden Chinas foreign policy.

Political Liberalization without Democratization: Pan Wei's proposal for political reform

This paper is a response to Pan Weis rule of law regime reform proposal. It agrees with Pan that the direction of political reform taken and discussed inside China is indeed different from the democratization that has been pushed by outside pro-democracy activists, including Chinese dissidents. While some Chinese scholars and think-tank analysts talk about political reform, they are not proposing to democratize the polity but to make the single party rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) more efficient or to provide it with a more solid legal base. They have looked upon political liberalization without democratization as an alternative solution to many of Chinas problems related to the extant authoritarian system. Pan Weis proposal for building a rule-of-law regime is a representative work of this group of Chinese intellectuals.

A New Model of Big Power Relations? China–US strategic rivalry and balance of power in the Asia–Pacific

Exploring the causes of the China–US strategic rivalry and its possible mitigation, this article argues that President Xis new model of big power relations represents a challenge to the US primacy in the Asia–Pacific based on Chinas rising power and deeply rooted suspicion of the US containment. But neither the US nor China can be the single dominant power in the region. The new model can be built only if China and the US demonstrate a strategic restraint and maintain a delicate balance of power to prevent their rivalry from boiling over into a new Cold War.

Rethinking the Chinese World Order: the imperial cycle and the rise of China

Looking to Chinas imperial history to understand how China as a great power will behave in the twenty-first century, some scholars have rediscovered the concept of the traditional Chinese world order coined by John K. Fairbank in the 1960s in the reconstruction of the benevolent governance and benign hierarchy of the Chinese Empire, and portrayed its collapse as a result of the clash of civilizations between the benevolent Chinese world order and the brutal European nation-state system. China was forced into the jungle of the social Darwinist world to struggle for its survival. As a result, Chinas search for power and wealth is to restore justice in an unjust world. Chinas rise would be peaceful. This article finds that while imperial China was not uniquely benevolent nor uniquely violent, the reconstruction of Chinas imperial past to advance the contemporary agenda of its peaceful rise has, ironically, set a nineteenth century agenda for China in the twenty-first century to restore the regional hierarchy and maximize Chinas security by expanding influence and control over its neighborhoods.

Whither the China Model: revisiting the debate

Abstract The China model debate has come in three waves since the early 2000s and focused on the role of the state as an organizing force to lead China’s modernization. Revisiting the debate, this article argues that while the alluring story of China’s high growth blinded its dark side for a long time, the economic downturn after 2015 is nothing more than an expedient time for Chinese leaders not only to transform China’s growth model from export and investment-driven to qualitative internal development, but also to build institutional checks on the state authority and to hold the state accountable. If China is able to complete the transition on both fronts, the China model will stand, but a sustained downturn or a lost decade or two could declare the end of the China model.

Economic interdependence and political divergence: The emerging pattern of relations across the Taiwan Strait

Economic interactions between Taiwan and mainland China have grown at an astounding speed since the Taipei government began to relax restrictions on indirect trade with the mainland in the late 1980s. A growing flood of cross‐border investment and trade has created an economic interdependence. However, intensified economic exchanges have not spilled over into political recognition of the legitimacy to each other or even ameliorated hostility across the Taiwan Strait. Growing economic interdependence has been a function of political power and political choice. This paper examines the emerging pattern of the relations across the Taiwan Strait and attributes the discrepancy between economic and political relations to significant disparities across the Taiwan Strait, which has worked as both integrative and disintegrative forces.

China's Search for Energy Security: Domestic Sources and International Implications

Chinas rapid economic growth in the recent decades has produced an unprecedented energy vulnerability that could threaten the sustainability of its economic development, a linchpin to social stability and ultimately the regime legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as well as the foundation for Chinas rising power aspirations. What is the Chinese perception of the energy security and challenges, how has the Chinese government responded to the challenges? What are the international implications of Chinas search for energy security? This collection of contributions by leading scholarsseeks answers to these extremely important questions. The book is divided into three parts. Part I presents an overview of Chinas sense of energy security and its strategic responses. Part II examines Chinas energy policy-making processes, the efforts to reform and reorganize the energy sector and reset policy prioritiesPart III focuses on the international implications of Chinas search for energy security. This book consists of articles published in the Journal of Contemporary China.

Political Reform and Changing One-Party Rule in Deng’s China

Reforming the CCP leadership system has important ramifications for China’s political development. During the Deng era, the CCP transformed itself from a revolutionary mass party to a pragmatic, system-maintaining ruling party, motivated by economic modernization and reflecting the Party’s inability to cope with complex economic and administrative decisions.