China’s economic success is in spite of the state

Weiying Zhang, a professor of economics at Peking University, objects to the notion that China’s extraordinary economic success is a result of the strong influence exerted by the state.

This misinterpretation is common in the West, but it is also increasingly prevalent in China, where some politicians and academics believe that the explanation for the country’s success lies in a particular Chinese model. “The advocates of the China model are wrong because they mistake ‘in spite of’ as ‘because of.’ China has grown fast not because of, but in spite of unlimited government and the large inefficient state sector,” he explains in his paper. “The China model view is factually false.”