The Chinese Model of Development and Its Implications

At the end of the Cold War, scholars were pondering how far Western ideas would spread in an international environment defined by “the end of history.” China’s rapid and continuous growth in the past three decades alters this backdrop. Today, the debate seems to be on how far Chinese ideas (also known as the “Beijing Consensus”) could reach. This paper focuses on the following aspects of the Chinese model of development and its implications: What does the China model contain? What are major critiques and limitations of the China model? Is the Chinese model applicable to other nations? It should be noted that due to its recent economic slowdown, the China model of development is losing some luster. Today’s Chinese leadership does not claim that the Chinese developmental model to be an alternative to other models. China seems to enter a new era of Chinese exceptionalism. The paper concludes that the increasingly prosperous China does represent an alternative development model that has gained some traction in the developing world, and the fears that the China development model will dominate the world are premature.