Can China break shackles of its old economic systems, scale greater heights? | The Indian Express

Can China break shackles of its old economic systems, scale greater heights? | The Indian Express

Written by Sanjiv Misra |Updated: October 22, 2019 9:42:22 am

The writer is a former secretary to Government of India and member, Finance Commission

Can China break shackles of its old economic systems, scale greater heights?

The advent of Xi as the President of China in 2013 marks a discontinuity in the direction and thrust of state policies followed since the time of Deng Xiaoping, and is now a significant factor imparting uncertainty to China’s future prospects.

Making projections about a country as politically and economically inscrutable as China is a hazardous endeavour in the best of circumstances.

“To be rich is glorious” is the famous Deng Xiaoping quote that set communist China on a spectacular growth path spanning over three decades, challenging the entrenched Western perspective that economic prosperity could be achieved only in the liberal market democracies. The shift in viewpoint is perhaps best articulated by Martin Jacques in his provocatively titled best seller, When China Rules the World — the end of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order, which built upon available projections that the Chinese economy would overtake the American economy in terms of size by the close of the third decade of this century – a development that could potentially transform the structure of the world order to one dominated by China.