The primary aim of this book is to understand the ground-breaking paradigms and policies that have powered China's remarkable rise: from an agricultural society to an industrial powerhouse and a leading nation — and that too in a span of merely forty years from 1979 to 2019. The book covers the rise of China up to 2019 and is divided into five parts. The first part takes a strategic view of China's rise, the second part provides a quantitative assessment of China's rise using macroeconomic indicators; the third part provides a historical background of modern China, starting from the unification of China in 221 BC to the rise to power of the Communist Party of China, leading to the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The fourth part analyses China's governance as well as its economic system and lastly, part five summarizes China's rise and the paradigms that powered this rise.

"China and the United States are bound to have issues and confrontation. We will also have synergies, collaboration, and cooperation. In China's Rise, Brandy Womack has compiled the most useful set of perspectives in the last decade on how to think about China. The contributors to this book are not only among the best observers and analysts of China's actions but also some of the best writers in the field. They have given us a guide to understanding that is not only immensely interesting to a broad group of readers trying to understand modern China but also eminently useful to those who deal in the U.S.-China relationship in any serious way."---Admiral Joseph W. Prueher, former ambassador to China and commander-in-chief, U.S. Pacific Command "Stimulating and elegant. This unique book purposefully blends insightful historical analyses and strong present-day commentaries, placing core elements of the phenomenon of contemporary China into very meaningful contexts. This welcome and long-overdue approach will assist a broad readership that seeks to understand both where China has been and where it is going."---Robert A. Kapp, president, Robert A. Kapp & Associates, Inc., and former president, US-China Business Council

China's rise to power from a fallen economy perhaps an important question deals with whether China has been able to convert its rising power into international influence and, if so, whether this influence extends to the international system as a whole or exists on a country-to-country basis. It is widely assumed that China's growing capabilities and activities translate into influence, but the linkage remains assumed and not proven. Evaluating the connection between power and influence should at once help assess the dynamics surrounding China's rise while helping scholars attain a deeper understanding of international relations concepts such as "power transitions" and "great power status." Political and academic discussions often take for granted that growing Chinese power translates into Chinese influence in world politics. The central question in much of the scholarly and policy literature is "what kind of great power is China becoming?" There are, however, at least questions that must be addressed surrounding the nature of "China's rise" before investigating China's great power status as such.

China's rise to power is the signal event of the twenty-first century, and this volume offers a contemporary view of this nation in ascendancy from the inside. Eight recent essays by Xu Jilin, a popular historian and one of China's most prominent public intellectuals, critique China's rejection of universal values and the nation's embrace of Chinese particularism, the rise of the cult of the state and the acceptance of the historicist ideas of Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss. Xu's work is distinct both from better-known voices of dissent and also from the 'New Left' perspectives, offering instead a liberal reaction to the complexity of China's rise. Yet this work is not a shrill denunciation of Xu's intellectual enemies, but rather a subtle and heartfelt call for China to accept its status as a great power and join the world as a force for good.

The rise of China is no doubt one of the most important events in world economic history since the Industrial Revolution. Mainstream economics, especially the institutional theory of economic development based on a dichotomy of extractive vs. inclusive political institutions, is highly inadequate in explaining China's rise. This book argues that only a radical reinterpretation of the history of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the West (as incorrectly portrayed by the institutional theory) can fully explain China's growth miracle and why the determined rise of China is unstoppable despite its current 'backward' financial system and political institutions. Conversely, China's spectacular and rapid transformation from an impoverished agrarian society to a formidable industrial superpower sheds considerable light on the fundamental shortcomings of the institutional theory and mainstream 'blackboard' economic models, and provides more-accurate reevaluations of historical episodes such as Africa's enduring poverty trap despite radical political and economic reforms, Latin America's lost decades and frequent debt crises, 19th century Europe's great escape from the Malthusian trap, and the Industrial Revolution itself.

2017 marked the seventy-fifth anniversary of Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, a work acknowledged as one of the most insightful books written in the twentieth century. It retains a contemporary quality, and still invites criticisms, new interpretations, and extensions and across disciplines. This book, in addition to re-examining Schumpeter’s seminal work and undertaking a twenty-first-century update of its main themes, brings together leading social scientists to provide contemporary amendments, extensions – or eventually refutations – of key elements of Schumpeter’s vision and thesis. Issues covered include a new take on creative destruction, the contours of a theory of innovative enterprise, finance and financialisation, a critique of the secular stagnation thesis, Schumpeter’s contributions to a theory of the entrepreneurial state, his conception of socialism and its current relevance for understanding the 'China model' as well as a rekindling of his democracy thesis for our times. Bringing together leading international contributors, this book provides fresh perspectives on ideas that continue to be hugely relevant to contemporary social sciences and a guide for understanding the current tensions among capitalism, the state and democracy. These chapters will be of interest to economists, social scientists and anyone with an interest in modern capitalism.

In less than three decades, China has emerged as the world's largest exporting nation with more than $2 trillion exports annually. China's quick rise as a leading exporter in the world is an unprecedented miracle. There are many theories explaining this miracle. This book adopts the global value chain (GVC) approach to analyze the Chinese export miracle over the last four decades. It focuses on the tasks rather than the gross export value and emphasizes the organizations of modern trade rather than the national comparative advantage. The GVC approach systematically explains how, in less than four decades China has evolved from a closed economy to the world's No. 1 exporting nation; why China, a developing country, has exported more high-technology products than labor-intensive products to the US; and why almost half of the US trade deficit has originated from China.The book identifies three spillover effects of GVCs that originated from brands, technology and product innovation, and distribution and retail networks of GVCs lead firms. It argues that China's deep integration with GVCs has been a decisive factor for China's emergence as the world's No.1 exporting nation and the champion of high-technology exports. In addition, this book uses iPhone trade and the operation of Apple, the largest factory-less American manufacturer, to explain how current trade statistics exaggerate China's exports to and its trade surplus with the US on the one hand, and underestimate US exports on the other hand.By using the experience of the Chinese mobile phone industry, the book argues that the GVC strategy can be a short-cut for developing countries to achieve industrialization and enable firms of developing countries to enter high-technology sectors despite their intrinsic disadvantages. At this end, the book also discusses the future trajectory of China-centered GVCs under the shadow of the US-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The book seeks to understand China's evolving political and economic role in Africa and assesses what impacts Chinese aid, trade and investment have on the politics of specific African countries, and the extent to which it excites geopolitical competition.

Geopolitics and Development examines the historical emergence of development as a form of governmentality, from the end of empire to the Cold War and the War on Terror. It illustrates the various ways in which the meanings and relations of development as a discourse, an apparatus and an aspiration, have been geopolitically imagined and enframed. The book traces some of the multiple historical associations between development and diplomacy and seeks to underline the centrality of questions of territory, security, statehood and sovereignty to the pursuit of development, along with its enrolment in various (b)ordering practices. In making a case for greater attention to the evolving nexus between geopolitics and development and with particular reference to Africa, the book explores the historical and contemporary geopolitics of foreign aid, the interconnections between development and counterinsurgency, the role of the state and social movements in (re)imagining development, the rise of (re)emerging donors like China, India and Brazil, and the growing significance of South–South flows of investment, trade and development cooperation. Drawing on post-colonial and postdevelopment approaches and on some of the author’s own original empirical research, this is an essential, critical and interdisciplinary analysis of the complex and dynamic political geographies of global development. Primarily intended for scholars and post-graduate students in development studies, human geography, African studies and international relations, this book provides an engaging, invaluable and up-to-date resource for making sense of the complex entanglement between geopolitics and development, past and present.

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography aims to account for the intellectual and worldly developments that have taken place in and around political geography in the last 10 years. Bringing together established names in the field as well as new scholars, it highlights provocative theoretical and conceptual debates on political geography from a range of global perspectives. Discusses the latest developments and places increased emphasis on modes of thinking, contested key concepts, and on geopolitics, climate change and terrorism Explores the influence of the practice-based methods in geography and concepts including postcolonialism, feminist geographies, the notion of the Anthropocene, and new understandings of the role of non-human actors in networks of power Offers an accessible introduction to political geography for those in allied fields including political science, international relations, and sociology