China's Crisis of Success

Explores how China has reached a threshold where continued success requires re-invention of its economy and politics.

China's Crisis of Success re-examines China's rise to superpower status, showing that, despite social and administrative strengths often unacknowledged by Western commentary, continued success now requires re-invention of its economy and politics. Xi Jinping's extremely risky strategy for re-invention could lead to success, stagnation or a great crisis.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.