China’s future will be determined by how its leaders manage its myriad interconnected challenges. In Fateful Decisions, leading experts from a wide range of disciplines eschew broad predictions of success or failure in favor of close analyses of today’s most critical demographic, economic, social, political, and foreign policy challenges. They expertly outline the options and opportunity costs entailed, providing a cutting-edge analytic framework for understanding the decisions that will determine China’s trajectory.
Xi Jinping has articulated ambitious goals, such as the Belt and Road Initiative and massive urbanization projects, but few priorities or policies to achieve them. These goals have thrown into relief the crises facing China as the economy slows and the population ages while the demand for and costs of education, healthcare, elder care, and other social benefits are increasing. Global ambitions and a more assertive military also compete for funding and policy priority. These challenges are compounded by the size of China’s population, outdated institutions, and the reluctance of powerful elites to make reforms that might threaten their positions, prerogatives, and Communist Party legitimacy. In this volume, individual chapters provide in-depth analyses of key policies relating to these challenges. Contributors illuminate what is at stake, possible choices, and subsequent outcomes. This volume equips readers with everything they need to understand these complex developments in context.
Table of Content
Introduction
—Thomas Fingar and Jean C. Oi
1. Xi Jinping and the Evolution of Chinese Leadership Politics
—Alice Lyman Miller
2. Grand Steerage
—Barry Naughton
3. Anticorruption Forever?
—Andrew Wedeman
4. Future of Central-Local Relations
—Jean C. Oi
5. Social Media and Governance in China
—Xueguang Zhou
6. Demographic Challenges
—Karen Eggleston
7. Can China Achieve Inclusive Urbanization?
—Mary E. Gallagher
8. Human Capital and China’s Future
—Hongbin Li, James Liang, Scott Rozelle, and Binzhen Wu
9. Sources and Shapers of China’s Foreign Policy
—Thomas Fingar
10. China and the Global South
—Ho-fung Hung
11. Bold Strategy or Irrational Exuberance?
—Christine Wong
12. All (High-Speed Rail) Roads Lead to China
—David M. Lampton
13. China’s Military Aspirations
—Karl Eikenberry
14. China’s National Trajectory
—Andrew G. Walder
About the author
Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.
Jean C. Oi is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics and a Senior Fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.
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