Charting China's Future: Domestic and International Challenges

Charting China's Future: Domestic and International ChallengesDavid Shambaugh (ed.), Charting China's Future: Domes- tic and International Challenges, London and New York, Routledge, 2011, 187 pp.Prognostications made by political scientists easily fall into the abyss of facile speculation, because real-life politics change constantly and may give rise to unexpected outcomes. Ambitious theoretical gener- alisations based on limited observational data can be proved false by new data that do not support the existing theses. In this sense, there is nothing more difficult than to foresee the future of a political regime as full of com- plexities as China's. Contemporary China has its own intrinsic dynamics that cannot be perfectly explained through any established analytical model de- veloped in the Western academic context. However, China experts, espe- cially quite a few American Sinologists, have never stopped making bold, insightful prognoses over the wrenching and systematic changes in China over the years. Unfortunately, China's development since 1989 once again betrayed their wishful speculations; neither radical democratisation nor sud- den collapse of the regime occurred. On the contrary, the Chinese Commu- nist Party (CCP) maintains a steadily grip on state power and keeps society under its effective control. Most importantly, China has become the world's second largest economy on the way to its "peaceful rise. " Why is there such a big discrepancy between scholarly predictions and the real China? Is it worth writing yet another book vainly attempting to chart China's future? This book edited by David Shambaugh, one of the leading political scien- tists studying China, seeks to fulfil this "mission impossible" through a whole new approach. The contributors to this volume do not aim at making gen- eral, long-term predictions. Rather, as Shambaugh clearly states, they seek to figure out the near- and mid-term development of China up until 2015 (p. 174). They first provide comprehensive, nuanced portraits of current China with regard to domestic issues such as politics, the economy, and so- ciety as well as international issues at the global and regional level. Based on these informative descriptions of the status quo, the contributors then sketch out various possible scenarios of China's developmental trajectory in the respective spheres they observe. Intentionally, they do not share a common theoretical model, nor do they adopt a comparative empirical per- spective. Rather, what they claim to accomplish is to apply a thin layer of analysis to in-depth information that focuses on today's China and is "free of social-science jargon and extensive footnotes" (p. 2). Yet, rejecting a homogenous theoretical model does not mean there is no consensus among Shambaugh and his contributors. Rather, they seek to un- derstand China from a historical-sociological institutionalist perspective. China is seen as a unique institution capable of being self-sustaining and self-adapting and which therefore has managed to keep its "dynamic sta- bility" (p. 174). On the one hand, following the logic of path dependence, none of the authors predicts dramatic change in the short run. Instead, they insist that the status quowill generally persist. On the other hand, they identify various challenges confronting the Chinese state and society, both internally and externally. Whether these challenges will develop into more threatening scenarios and how they will be dealt with seems vital to the future stability of China and its long-term development.According to the authors, among all spheres within China, the political sphere is the most robust against radical reform. Bredsgaard argues that the future of the Chinese political system will be neither a linear process toward democracy nor a dramatic regime collapse, but rather a "resilient authori- tarianism" dominated by the CCP with an amazing ability to learn and adapt (p. …