The Economics of China: Successes and Challenges

This paper is the first chapter in the Oxford Companion to the Economics of China (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). Rather than trying to summarize other contributors' views, we provide our own perspectives on the Economics of China--the past experience and the future prospects. Our reading of China's economic development over the past 35 years raises two major sets of issues, one of which is inward looking, and the other of which is outward looking. While Chinese aggregate development is impressive, it has raised the question of whether the growth is sustainable, and has led to a set of distributional issues and well-being concerns. We argue that these internal issues combine with those raised by China's rapid integration and ever growing presence in the international arena, to jointly frame the challenges faced by China in the next 35 years, as it approaches the 100th anniversary of the People's Republic in 2049.