China's Technological Leapfrogging and Economic Catch-up

After a miraculous economic growth, spurred by the Beijing Consensus, China is now facing a slowdown. This book deals with the interesting issue of the middle-income trap—the phenomenon of the rapidly growing economy of a country stagnating at the middle-income level—in the context of China. It also discusses China’s limitations and future prospects, especially after the onset of a new “cold war” between China and the US, and in particular whether it would fall into the “Thucydides trap,” the conflict between a rising power and the existing hegemon. This book plays around three key terms, the Beijing Consensus, the middle-income trap, and the Thucydides trap, and applies a Schumpeterian approach to these concepts. It also conducts a comparative analysis examining China from an “economic catch-up” perspective. Economic catch-up starts with learning from and imitating a forerunner, but a successful catch-up requires leapfrogging, which implies a latecomer doing something different from, and often ahead of, a forerunner. Technological leapfrogging may lead to technological catch-up, which means reducing the technological gap, and then to economic catch-up in living standards and economic size. This linkage between technological and economic catch-up corresponds exactly with a similar linkage between the Beijing Consensus and escaping (or not) the middle-income and Thucydides traps. The book concludes that China’s successful rise as a global industrial power has been due to its strategy of technological leapfrogging, which has enabled it to move beyond the middle-income trap and possibly the Thucydides trap, although at a slower speed.

Assessing China’s Economic Catch-up in a Comparative Perspective

Chapter 5 assesses China’s catch-up model, often called the Beijing Consensus, in a comparative perspective. China’s model shares several elements of the East Asian model because it also pursued the export-oriented, outward-looking growth strategies. A further commonality lies in its emphasis on the elements missing from the Washington Consensus, namely, technology policy and higher education revolution. However, the Chinese catch-up model has several unique elements that are not found in that of Taiwan or Korea. These unique features include the following: first, parallel learning from foreign direct investment firms, followed by active promotion of indigenous firms; second, forward engineering (the role of university spin-off firms) in contrast to reverse engineering adopted in Korea and Taiwan; and third, acquisition of foreign technology and brands through international mergers and acquisitions. In general, these strategies help China achieve a “compressed catch-up” and avoid several of the risks involved, including that of the “liberalization trap,” where premature financial liberalization leads to macroeconomic instability.

The way of Russia from Washington consensus to Beijing consensus: a sound choice

The article uses the methodology of world-systems analysis and the theory of sys-temic cycles of capital accumulation to spotlight the turning point of the modern era in connection with the unfolding change in the dominant world economic order. The intensification of the US hybrid war against China and Russia is seen as an inevitable consequence of the completion of a systemic cycle. A comparative anal-ysis of the outdated "Washington consensus" is carried out, as well as of the "Bei-jing consensus" that is superseding it. The need for the multidimensional integra-tion of Russia into the Asian world economic order is justified as a way to strengthen her national security and to ensure sustainable economic development in the foreseeable future.

The Beijing Consensus and the New Silk Road in Africa: Chinese investments in new disputes of hegemony

This paper is going to analyze, from governmental and academic reports, the development of Sino-African relations mainly in the sphere of influence of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC); and of the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) project, also known as the New Silk Road.

From State to Market: A Fork in the Reform Road

This chapter undertakes a cross-regional comparison of the developmental paths of China and the Latin American countries of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Peru (LAC 5). It traces the economic histories and policies implemented within the LAC-5 from the 1950s until the 1980s before turning to China to do the same from the 1980s onward. The author argues that the contrasting underlying logic between the Washington Consensus and the Beijing Consensus can explain the widely divergent outcomes in the development of Latin America and China.