The Beijing Consensus: How China s Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century - Hardcover

Halper, Stefan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465013619 ISBN 13: 9780465013616

Publisher: Basic Books, 2010

Synopsis

Beijing presents a clear and gathering threat to Washington—but not for the reasons you think. China's challenge to the West stems from its transformative brand of capitalism and an entirely different conception of the international community.

Taking us on a whirlwind tour of China in the world—from dictators in Africa to oligarchs in Southeast Asia to South American strongmen—Halper demonstrates that China's illiberal vision is rapidly replacing that of the so-called Washington Consensus. Instead of promoting democracy through economic aid, as does the West, China offers no-strings-attached gifts and loans, a policy designed to build a new Beijing Consensus.

The autonomy China offers, together with the appeal of its illiberal capitalism, have become the dual engines for the diffusion of power away from the West. The Beijing Consensus is the one book to read to understand this new Great Game in all its complexity.

About this title

About the Author:

Stefan Halper is a Senior Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge, and a Distinguished Fellow at the Nixon Center in Washington, D.C. Halper served in the White House and Department of State during the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations. He divides his time between Great Falls, Virginia, and Cambridge, UK.

Review:

John F. Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy
"Twenty years of mismanaged diplomacy and deterrence enabled an avoidable world war in the Pacific. If Stef Halper had been writing then it might have been different. Today a similar pattern of inadequate strategy carries the seeds of another Pacific war involving America and China, but Halper has provided a timely book to help avoid history repeating. His concepts and logic, delivered in lucid, even elegant prose are overwhelmingly persuasive, setting a positive new framework for debate in Washington."

Minxin Pei, Senior Scholar, The Carnegie Endowment, Professor of Political Science, Claremont College
"Stefan Halper has written a thoughtful and provocative book that challenges us to rethink the conventional wisdom about the impact of China’s ascendance on the world order. It should be required reading the policy community."
James R. Lilley, former US Ambassador to China and South Korea and Chief of the US Mission in Taiwan
"Stefan Halper has analyzed and given historical perspective to probably the greatest issue we face in the 21st Century, the rise of China and the role of the United States. China and the US must cooperate, cautiously, for the sake of mankind but this must be accompanied by a clear-eyed view of a military/strategic balance. This is a wide ranging book, challenging and well-written and researched, and should be read by people who have an interest in the outcome of the 21st Century."

Ted Carpenter, Executive Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy, The CATO Institute
"Stefan Halper provides a thoughtful, refreshing analysis of the strategic and economic enigma that is China, carefully avoiding the fallacy of seeing China as either a mortal military and commercial threat to the United States or as a benign strategic partner for this country. Halper demolishes an assortment of myths and may well have written the most important book to have appeared in the past decade on China and U.S. policy toward that emerging great power."
James B. L. Mayall, University of Cambridge, Emeritus Professor of International Relations and Departmental Chairman
"In this deeply researched and well-written book Stefan Halper challenges Washington's conventional wisdom, arguing powerfully that the strategic battle will not be primarily over territory or even markets. It will be over values, a contest between the liberal values of the Enlightenment and the Chinese model of market authoritarianism. This book does not pretend to suggest that there is an easy answer, much more valuably it lays out the issues clearly and sets the stage for an informed and rational debate."

Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)
"The rise of modern China has generated megabytes of commentary, most of it rather predictable in content and ideas. Here at last is a fresh, original book of great insight that gives an alternative and attention-grabbing view of China’s steady advance towards super-power status. Stefan Halper’s book decodes the wider and worrying significance of such a striking historical juxtaposition. " 

Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State
"Stefan Halper provides a thoughtful and well-researched book that addresses the impact of China's market-authoritarian model on global affairs in the century before us. Halper points to a ‘battle of ideas’ in which China challenges Western concepts of governance while appealing to the developing world with a model for growth and stability."

James R. Schlesinger, former Secretary of Defense and Energy
"In this deeply researched and well-written book, the challenge posed by China, as Dr. Halper sees it, is not fundamentally military, but political and economic. China’s example of rapid economic growth and authoritarian rule may well have greater appeal in the developing world with the result that developing nations increasingly reject democratic values, transparency and rule of law in favor of a dynamic market-authoritarian model that delivers growth but limits many freedoms we cherish. Among the results are trends that leave this country increasingly isolated."

Publisher’s Weekly
"Halper cogently rejects the ‘conventional wisdom’ that suggests America’s relationship with China is ‘on track’ in this lucid, probing text...[Halper] concludes this sobering, excellently argued book with concrete policy recommendations..."

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0465013619
• ISBN 13: 9780465013616
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 312