Anatomy of Chinese Selectocracy

Dec 06-2018   

Neither the Marxist narrative nor the Western-styled democratic narrative suffices to explain China’s success over the last 40 years, wrote Prof. Yao Yang, dean of NSD, for a special issue of China Economic Journal shedding light on how China has managed to release growth potential and leap over hurdles that impede efficiency and creativity. The political-economical lynchpin behind the China Miracle is the nation’s unique system of selectocracy, which has two basic characteristics: One, the selection of officials is concentrated in the hands of the Party; Two, the Party adopts de-politicized governing tactics to shape a neural government, which does not continually favor one particular group nor abide by narrowly-defined ideology, hence casting a long view on economic development. The Chinese selectocracy is open, competitive and meritocratic, and should be correctly understood and summarized into the third narrative, he said.