SHANGHAI ¨C As China grapples with enormous challenges ¡ª including an imploding property sector, unfavorable demographics and slowing growth ¡ª doubts about the future of the world¡¯s largest growth engine are intensifying.
Add to that China¡¯s geopolitical rise, together with deepening tensions with the United States, and the need to understand China¡¯s political economy is becoming more urgent than ever.
A recent book by MIT¡¯s Yasheng Huang ¡ª ¡°The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline¡± ¡ª can help. Huang unpacks the ¡°EAST¡± heuristic from the historical record of the last two and a half millennia, especially the last 40 years, to arrive at a clear conclusion: China must make radical changes if it is going to realize its full development potential.
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