Beijing Consensus

The Beijing Consensus (北京共识) or China Model (中国模式), also known as the Chinese Economic Model, is the political and economic policies of the People's Republic of China (PRC) that began to be instituted by Deng Xiaoping after Mao Zedong's death in 1976. The policies are thought to have contributed to China's "economic miracle" and eightfold growth in gross national product over two decades. In 2004, the phrase "Beijing Consensus" was coined by Joshua Cooper Ramo to frame China's economic development model as an alternative—especially for developing countries—to the Washington Consensus of market-friendly policies promoted by the IMF, World Bank, and U.S. Treasury. In 2016, Ramo explained that the Beijing Consensus shows not that "every nation will follow China’s development model, but that it legitimizes the notion of particularity as opposed to the universality of a Washington model". The term's definition is not agreed upon. Ramo has detailed it as a pragmatic policy that uses innovation and experimentation to achieve "equitable, peaceful high-quality growth", and "defense of national borders and interests", whereas other scholars have used it to refer to "stable, if repressive, politics and high-speed economic growth". Others criticize its vagueness, claiming that there is "no consensus as to what it stands for" other than being an alternative to the neoliberal Washington Consensus, and that the term "is applied to anything that happens in Beijing, regardless of whether or not it has to do with a 'Chinese Model of Development,' or even with the People's Republic of China (PRC) per se". The China Model is sometimes used interchangeably with the Beijing Consensus, though there are people who insist "it is inaccurate to describe the Chinese model as the 'Beijing consensus' versus the 'Washington consensus'." Observations of Western commentators: replacing trust in the free market for economic growth with "a more muscular state hand on the levers of capitalism"; an absence of political liberalization; strong leading role of ruling political party; population control.