The End of the China Model

China has experienced three decades of rapid economic growth under one-party rule. The apparent success in economic development has given rise to the idea that China has crafted a unique and effective strategy of economic development under authoritarian rule. But recent signs of economic slowdown, catastrophic environmental degradation, rising social tensions, and identifies some possible reform scenarios that may revive China’s dynamism.

Minxin Pei is the Tom and Margot Pritzker ‘72 Professor of Government and the director of the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at Claremont McKenna College. He is also a non-resident senior fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Prior to joining CMC in July 2009,
Pei was a senior associate and the director of the China Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washingtion D.C. His research
focuses on democratization in developing countries, economic reform and governance in China, and U.S.-China relations. Pei’s research and op-eds have
been widely published, and most recent book is China’s Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Harvard University Press, 2006). Pei
received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University, and was on the faculty at Princeton University from 1992 to 1998.