Long-term outlook for China’s political reform

China’s post-1978 economic reform is generally acclaimed as success, for the Chinese economy has expanded nine-fold in a matter of 25 years and the country rose from the world’s 34th largest trading nation in 1978 to the third largest in 2004 ahead of Japan. Interestingly, the Chinese experiment is often described in the West as “economic reform without political reform”. This begets the question: how could a politically un-reformed system be able to deliver such an economic miracle? In reality, China has conducted, by its own standards, major political reforms since 1978. Though far short of the Western expectations, the Chinese experience since 1978 should better be described as “great economic reforms with lesser political reforms”, without which China’s economic success would be inconceivable. China’s “lesser political reforms” have reduced country’s opportunities for greater political change, thus alienating many reform-minded intellectuals. Nevertheless, it may also have helped China avert the possible economic and social upheavals which could have resulted from rushing too fast into a radically different economic and political system. There is a strongly held belief, especially among the more ‘ideological’ observers of Chinese affairs that unless there were a radical political reform, perhaps tantamount to a revolution, to rid China of its “oppressive” Communist Party, the Chinese system would inevitably collapse just like what had happened in the USSR and Eastern Europe. As the party has been in power, China had been predicted to face collapse in the aftermath of the Tiananmen crisis of 1989, the Soviet Union’s disintegration of 1990, the death of Deng Xiaoping in 1996, and the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and the 2003 outbreak of SARS. Yet all these forecasts turned out to be wrong and the track record of the China doomsayers over the past 20 years is indeed poor. Will China become a democracy through its political reform in 20 years? Indeed, a full democracy could be the best scenario for China, the region and beyond, but it is difficult to give a definitive answer, which will, to a great extent, depend on how to achieve democracy in China, i.e. the costs/risks involved, as well as what kind of ultimate shape such a democracy will take. If full-fledged democratisation will take more time, the pressure for a more accountable government and more democratic society is growing, and this trend will continue with the rise of China’s middle class and civil society. Therefore, the most likely scenario for China in the coming two decades is that China will continue its own approach to political reform, and the relative successful experience of China’s economic reform may well set a pattern for China’s political reform in the years to come. As part of Europe’s general approach towards China’s political change, it is in Europe’s interest to assist, in line with the view of most Chinese, gradual reform rather than revolution or ‘regime change’, which could produce hugely negative consequences for China itself, Sino–European relations and European interests in China and even East Asia.     

捷克福利制度变迁的历史考察与趋势分析

学界对中东欧福利体系的关注,始于20世纪80年代末到90年代初原中东欧社会主义国家发生的剧变。当时,这些国家在政治上无一例外地选择了以多党制为基础的议会民主制,在经济上实行私有化并向市场经济过渡。为适应这种宏观环境的变化,波兰和匈牙利等国对其福利体系进行了较为激进的改革,而捷克始终把改革的范围限定在俾斯麦或贝弗里奇模式的框架之内。捷克的保守式改革有何制度背景?结果如何?是否需要更进一步的改革?本文试图对上述问题做出解答。本文通过对捷克福利制度的变迁过程进行研究,从捷克福利体系的建立、发展,再到不同时期捷克政府采取的改革措施,全面阐述了捷克福利体系的演变轨迹,并分析了捷克现行福利体系的构成原因以及面临的压力,最后,对其可能的发展趋势作出预测。     

国际金融危机对中国开放型经济的影响及中国的和平发展

2008年由美国次贷危机引发的全球金融危机使中国的外向型经济受到严峻考验。然而在危机中,中国开创了以开放促改革和发展的独特的经济增长道路,使对外经济关系上了一个新台阶,抓住了机遇,实现了新的发展。后金融危机时代中国面临着国内外经济环境的重大变化,开放型经济发展的难度增大。30年的改革开放,中国始终走的是和平发展的道路。今后,中国寻求的仍然是在竞争与合作中同世界共赢。     

The Expansion of Neoliberal Economic Reforms in Latin America

This article seeks to explain why most Latin American countries have expanded market-oriented reforms since the 1980s despite their generally disappointing economic results. To explain deepening liberal economic reform, we test panel data for 15 Latin American countries from 1980 to 1995, using Beck and Katz' panel-corrected standard errors regression. Controlling for several competing explanations, we find that, except under fragmented party systems, high inflation promotes the expansion of economic reforms. We then show how our results are consistent with Weyland's (1996) use of prospect theory as well as Rodrik's (1994) work on the distributional effects of high inflation.     

Command,Strategic Contest,and Confidence-building in the South China Sea

Wealth and power have steered global prestige from East to West and back again. History's serial relocations of economic growth and corollary power changed the character of the South China Sea into a conflictual conduit for Eastern and then Western colonialism, a strategic sea space in world war, and now a cockpit of contest to maintain or revise the rules-based international order. For the first time in several centuries, a Chinese blue water navy is projecting power across the Indo-Pacific and prosecuting a national maritime security strategy to transform the South China Sea into China's sovereign territory. In large part, the winner of the Sino-American struggle for preponderance in the South China Sea will steer the course of the twenty-first century in the Indo-Pacific.     

中印经济改革成功与缺失的制度逻辑

中印两国经济改革取得了显著的成就,已经改变了整个世界经济格局,受到各国广泛关注。本文综合考察中印两国经济改革的绩效,探索中印两国改革成功的制度根源,剖析两国经济发展绩效差异的制度成因,认为中印两国未来发展更应关注制度层面的深层次改革,两国应该相互借鉴各自制度的优势,取长补短,以实现各自的强国之梦。     

新一轮改革后的日本经济评析

日本经济在经历了20世纪90年代的衰退后,为实现经济复苏,开始了一轮新的改革.通过一系列改革措施,日本经济在2002年走出低谷,实现了复苏,改革成果显现.可以说,日本经济的复苏是在世界经济发展的背景下实现的,日本经济对世界经济尤其是美国经济具有很大的依赖性.随着全球经济形势的严峻,日本经济也难以独善其身,势必会随世界经济的起落而起落.但由于政府对经济的调控手段的不断成熟和完善,经济转型的延续,日本经济不会出现像20世纪90年代那样大的滑坡,应从发展的眼光把握日本经济今后走势.     

Chinese and Indian FDI in Hungary and the role of Eastern Opening policy

Asia Europe Journal - The aim of this paper is to assess the main features of Chinese and Indian investments in Hungary and the role of the Hungarian Government’s Eastern Opening policy in...     

A theory of reform consolidation in India: From crisis-induced reforms to strategic internationalization

ABSTRACT

I use the policy feedback literature to present an argument regarding the new politics of reform consolidation in India. India’s reform trajectory can be understood in terms of three distinct phases of reforms interspersed by periods of slowdown. In this narrative that goes beyond 1991, an analysis of struggles, opponents, and reversals become important, revealing a more contested pathway. In the 2000s India has moved beyond the initial, crisis-driven phase to a deeper external integration with the global economy and structural reform within. I call this phase an era of strategic internationalization. Reforms of 1985, 1991, and 1998–2000, in different ways, have begun to create new constituencies of support across India, which underlies the consolidation phase of reforms. During this long trajectory, the opponents of reforms could delay reforms but failed to reverse the direction of economic reforms. The purpose of this article is to provide a temporal framework that pays attention to mechanisms underlying different phases of reforms and how new supporters and opponents of reforms were created across different phases of the reform trajectory. Policies, the social bases of the Indian economy, and classes have been re-configured as a result.     

The emergence of regional economies in China and its implications,with special reference to Hong Kong and Guangdong

  China's continental physical expanse has been a dominant, shaping influence of its political, social and economic development throughout its modern history. Thanks to its relative ethnic homogeneity, as well as the absence of political reform, it has – unlike the former Soviet Union – preserved its unity as a state. Nevertheless, regionalism remains a powerful counterpoint to centralisation in China. In particular, under the impact of post-1978 economic reforms, differentials and tensions between provinces and regions have emerged as a potent force, threatening the authority and power of Beijing. This article begins by seeking to explore some of the regional forms in which economic change has manifested itself during the last two decades. It highlights the unique problems faced by an economy that is still in transition in a country as large as China. Brief consideration is also given to the wider regional context in which China is sometimes placed as the central player – namely, that of `Greater China'. At the heart of the article is a case study that examines the evolution of a particular kind of regionalism, captured in the economic integration – even symbiosis - between Hong Kong and Guangdong. The question is addressed whether the form of regionalism contained within the forging of an ever-closer economic relationship between these two areas of South China can be a model for the integration of other regions both within and across China's national boundaries. Hong Kong's transformation from a tiny, dependent, colonial enclave into one of the most successful economies in the world is one of the most remarkable stories of post-World War II economic history. During the 1960s and 1970s, Hong Kong's growth record was unmatched anywhere else in the world. But by the beginning of the 1980s, high land rents and spiralling wages started to erode the international competitiveness that had been the basis of Hong Kong's previous economic success. By a happy coincidence, however, the emergence of such pressures coincided with the opening of China to the outside world. China's `open door' policy thereby made available to Hong Kong entrepreneurs a huge, hitherto untapped reservoir of cheap labour and gave them access to inexpensive factory sites just across the border in Guangdong. It was a lifeline to which they responded eagerly and, through the relocation of their factories, provided the means whereby Hong Kong manufacturers discovered a new lease of life. The benefits associated with this process accrued not only to Hong Kong through the regeneration of its manufacturing industry. Rather, it was a two-way process that also facilitated economic growth, structural transformation and improvements in living standards in Guangdong (above all, in the Pearl River Delta). In short, the process became the basis of deepening integration between the economies of the two regions. Indeed, it was the key element in the emergence of a new regional economic grouping, known as `Greater China' – an informal triangular partnership between Hong Kong, Taiwan and two southern Chinese provinces (Guangdong and Fujian). The emergence of `Greater China' can be regarded as a particular manifestation of the coastal bias that has so strongly characterised China's economic trajectory under reform. To this day, the triangular economic nexus between Hong Kong, Taiwan and South China remains an important dimension of China's external economic relations, even if developments in other coastal provinces have caused it to weaken. To what extent recent and future developments have challenged and will continue to challenge the regionalism inherent in the original notion of Greater China is something that deserves close attention. Not least, the strategic initiative of opening up China's western regions poses interesting and important questions that touch on future developments of `trans-nationalism' and `trans-regionalism' affecting China.     

中国与朝鲜经贸关系转型中的困境及对策

新世纪以来,中朝经贸关系保持快速发展态势。其中的重要转变是从过去以战略安全为主导的经贸关系逐步转向以市场为主导的经贸关系,这一转变预示朝鲜正处于向市场经济转型的初始阶段。而在中朝经贸关系持续发展过程中,中国和朝鲜各自存在的问题影响、甚至阻碍着双边经贸关系的进一步发展,为了超越障碍、抓住朝鲜亟须外部支持之时机,中国有必要从重新确定双边经贸关系战略地位等方面入手,积极推动中朝经贸关系深入发展。     

Partners but not Allies: West European Co-operation with China, 1978–1982

The late 1970s’ decline of bipolar détente and economic problems in the developed world, on the one hand, and the Sino–Soviet conflict and the start of the Chinese reform programme, on the other, led to converging interests between the People’s Republic of China and Western Europe. Against this background, this analysis compares how the governments of Britain, France, and West Germany pursued their China policies between 1978 and 1982. Whilst supporting the PRC’s reform process in multiple ways, shared strategic objectives were not sufficient for the creation of a de facto alliance.     

Taiwan in International Economic Relations

As President Tsai Ing-wen assumes power, she faces a citizenry hoping that she can revitalize Taiwan's economy, including: promoting high growth, low unemployment, equitable distribution of income, affordable housing for working people, food safety and quality of life in a democratic country. They also expect that she will not be deterred from engaging in the international arena. However, President Tsai faces several challenges amid slowing growth in much of the world, and Taiwan's partial exclusion from the international economic order will affect prospects for her success in meeting expectations for further economic progress.     

Japanese political economy revisited: diverse corporate change,institutional transformation,and Abenomics

Abstract

This introductory article to the special issue on “Japanese Political Economy Revisited: Diverse Corporate Change, Institutional Transformation, and Abenomics” starts with a short summaryof the changing perceptions of Japan's political economy from its meteoric rise as worldwide leading model in the 1970s and 1980s to its demotiontoa problem and reform case since the later 1990s. Based on this overview, it identifies some striking issue and open questions in this conventional view of Japan's political economy as problem and the high expectations on Abenomics as Japan's current economic reform programme. Then we discuss the articles of the special issue and their new contributionsto a better understanding of the developments at the corporate level as well as institutional change and economic reforms at the macro level in the last two decades. Finally, this introductory article ends with a short outlineof a new research programme and four central research questions about the Japanese political economy.     

Marketization,Class Structure,and Democracy in China: Contrasting Regional Experiences

After two and half decades of market reforms in China, the question of whether reforms have created favourable social conditions for democracy and whether the country's emerging entrepreneurial class will serve as the democratic social base have become hotly debated issues in both academic and policy circles. Based upon an analysis of two regions – Sunan and Wenzhou, the two prototypical local development patterns in China – the article argues that different patterns of economic development have produced distinct local level social and political configurations, only one of which is likely to foster the growth of democratic practices. It suggests that China's political future is largely dependent upon the emerging class structure and class relations that reform and development have produced. If the market reforms and economic development only enrich a few (like the Sunan case), then the possibility of democratic transition will likely be very bleak. Nonetheless, the possibility of a brighter alternative exists, as demonstrated by the Wenzhou case. These arguments thus link China's political transition to critical social conditions, echoing Barrington Moore's influential work on the social origins of democracy and dictatorship.     

Globalization,the State,and India's Halting March to Common Market: The Political Economy of Tax Reform Under Federalism

As a social phenomenon, globalization has been the target of much criticism. One particular line of attack holds that it will lead to the segmentation and disintegration of the national economy. However, an examination of the long process of reform of the indirect tax system in India underlines, paradoxically, the significant role of globalization precisely in fostering domestic economic integration in the form of a common market, which would overcome the economic segmentation existing prior to globalization. Interestingly, such tax reform has, in considerable part, been driven by the need to meet globalization's challenge that India's economy be efficient and internationally competitive. At the same time, one should not underestimate the critically important role of the state as an institutional variable—which critics tend often to ignore—in carrying through the goal of establishing a common market, presently a work still in progress.     

试析越南的金融改革

自越共“六大”后,越南在经济改革和金融改革的推动下,经济增长保持了比较快的速度。本文认为越南的经济之所以能够取得比较大的成效,很大程度上得益于在经济改革的同时对金融部门进行了改革,特别是利率的自由化和汇率政策的调整,促使越南的银行规模有所扩大,效率相比改革前得到明显提高。因此本文的主题就是对越南的金融改革进行一个梳理,明白金融改革所带来的绩效以及改革中存在的问题,明确下一步改革的方向。     

Sustainable Energy Development in China

1. The Status of Energy Development in China Rapid economic growth and an export-driven chemical-intensive economic structure have led to a rapid increase in energy consumption. Rapid economic development and the corresponding surge in energy consumption in China have raised public concern. From 1978, when the reform find opening-up policy began to be implemented, the Chinese economy has witnessed sustained rapid growth and people's living standards have improved constantly. The objective to quadruple the economy within 20 years was achieved earlier than scheduled. A further objective was set to quadruple the economy again in the next 20 years and to realize an "all-around well-off society."     

An externally constrained hybrid regime: Hungary in the European Union

The paper focuses on the unique, role model characteristics of the Hungarian hybrid regime, the Hungarian political system’s new incarnation forged in the past years’ democratic backsliding process. Following the short review of the main hybrid regime literature and the key analyses putting the democratic quality of the Hungarian political system under the microscope, the paper argues that Hungary’s European Union (EU) membership, the competencies of EU institutions, and the scope of EU law have played a crucial role in the development of the system’s unique characteristics. Based on this argument, the paper qualifies Hungary as an “externally constrained hybrid regime”. However, the EU does not only fulfil system constraining functions regarding the Hungarian regime, but performs system support and system legitimation functions as well. Ultimately, the changing scope of these functions, determined by the European integration’s internal dynamics, influences first and foremost the Hungarian power elite’s strategic considerations about the country’s future EU membership.