China's Crisis of Success

China's Crisis of Success provides new perspectives on China's rise to superpower status, showing that China has reached a threshold where success has eliminated the conditions that enabled miraculous growth. Continued success requires re-invention of its economy and politics. The old economic strategy based on exports and infrastructure now piles up debt without producing sustainable economic growth, and Chinese society now resists the disruptive change that enabled earlier reforms. While China's leadership has produced a strategy for successful economic transition, it is struggling to manage the politics of implementing that strategy. After analysing the economics of growth, William H. Overholt explores critical social issues of the transition, notably inequality, corruption, environmental degradation, and globalisation. He argues that Xi Jinping is pursuing the riskiest political strategy of any important national leader. Alternative outcomes include continued impressive growth and political stability, Japanese-style stagnation, and a major political-economic crisis.

Dr. William H Overholt is a fellow at the Asia Global Institute and has been a Senior Fellow at Harvard since 2008. From 2013-2015 he was also Senior Fellow and then President of the Fung Global Institute in Hong Kong. From 2002-2008 he was Distinguished Chair and Director of the RAND Corporation’s Center for Asia Pacific Policy. He served as Asia regional Head of Strategy and Economics for Nomura from 1998 to 2001. Before that, he was Managing Director and regional Head of Research at Bank Boston Singapore. During 18 years at Bankers Trust, he managed a country risk team in New York from 1980 to 1984 and then served as regional strategist in Hong Kong. At Hudson Institute, 1971-1979 he directed studies for the U.S. Department of State, National Security Council, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Council on International Economic Policy.

Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies, Burkle Center for International Relations