“The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism” by Keyu Jin
Despite a reputation for abstruse thought, the French intellectual Michel Foucault once explained his research in a straightforward manner: “I set out from a problem expressed in the terms current today and I try to work out its genealogy. Genealogy means that I begin my analysis from a question posed in the present.” Keyu Jin took that approach to heart in The New China Playbook, a work that explains China’s present by tracing its economic genealogy since 1978.
Jin attributes China’s sustained growth not to some master plan but to a series of responses to contingent circumstances. In her telling, “Reform and Opening” covers four distinct phases of partial liberalization. First, the “household responsibility” system introduced market prices and incentives to families working in agriculture.
