For quite some time, discussions surrounding Chinaâs ascent within the capitalist world economy in the West, particularly in the United States, have been rife with myths and biases. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, especially in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, numerous economists and financial analysts endeavored to depict China as a captivating capitalist paradise for profit-making. They lauded the Chinese Communist Party for its purportedly superior management of the market economy compared to Western governments. Wall Streetâs fervent efforts to entice investors into pouring their portfolios into Chinese-related stocks contributed to the myth of a perfect capitalist machine in China. Phrases like âthe China modelâ and âBeijing Consensusâ proliferated. It became widely accepted that China could sustain double-digit or near-double-digit economic growth for decades to come.
However, the narrative took a turn when Chinaâs stock market crashed, and its currency tanked in the summer of 2015. This event marked the first time Western observers began to discern cracks in Chinaâs developmental model. Post-2015, the Chinese economy continued to decelerate, and the financial strains on heavily indebted local governments and major enterprises became increasingly difficult to conceal. The collapse of Evergrande, once hailed as a shining example of Chinaâs economic success, alongside other business failures and rising youth unemployment, exposed the contradictions and crises within Chinaâs developmental model. Western observers swiftly adopted a more pessimistic outlook on Chinaâs political economy, attributing the crisis to Chinaâs repressive party-state authoritarianism.
The Western portrayal of China has historically vacillated between extremes of fantasy and contempt, dating back centuries. This phenomenon traces back to the polarized views of the Catholic Church regarding China in the seventeenth century, where some viewed the Chinese as adherents to a monotheistic God, embodying superior morality, while others depicted them as idol-worshipping Satanists with values radically divergent from Christianity. The contemporary discourse surrounding Chinaâs capitalism mirrors earlier debates about Christianity, reflecting Western anxieties regarding Chinaâs status as a formidable empire or nation and its potential impact on Western norms and values.
While geopolitical and cultural tensions between Western developed countries and China hinder nuanced analysis, intellectual communities in the
The unique geopolitical and geo-economic position of the Global South in the escalating US-China rivalry provides scholars from these regions with exceptional insights into Chinese development and global expansion. This volume showcases numerous outstanding works that testify to such insights. Through my interactions with scholars and policymakers, many of whom are contributors to this book, from brics and other developing countries, Iâve come to appreciate the value of a non-dogmatic Southern perspective on Chinaâs capitalist development. This community of scholars offers a potent corrective to the prevalent fantasies and biases about China in the Western world. Hence, the publication of this volume is a cause for celebration. It should be widely disseminated not only in Brazil but also across the Global South and in the West.
Ho-fung Hung