China’s rise defies the monolithic authoritarian view; its actions reflect politics, economics, history, regional priorities, warning against flawed policy.
Comparisons between the Communist Party of China (CPC), Singapore’s People’s Action Party (PAP), and the United States’ populist electoral system are best framed not as a binary opposition between authoritarianism and democracy, but as a contrast among distinct logics of political legitimacy and leadership selection. These systems differ fundamentally in how they identify, train, select, … Read more
China’s post–reform rise is neither accidental nor a mere byproduct of globalization; it reflects sustained comparative learning from the successes and failures of twentieth-century development paths. Across cases as varied as Japan, South Korea, the Soviet Union, the United States, and Latin America, a consistent pattern emerges: long-run growth is shaped less by market openness, … Read more
The China governing narrative, compared with Singapore’s, rests on absolute performance legitimacy rather than electoral democracy, framing centralized authority as indispensable for national survival. While Singapore presents its one-party dominance as a pragmatic “unfree democracy,” China advances a more sweeping claim: the Communist Party safeguards civilization itself through competence, stability, and economic success, rendering political … Read more
This essay reassesses Lee Kuan Yew’s most consequential claims about China as presented in Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World (MIT Press, 2013), evaluating them against global developments up to January 2026. While several of his strategic judgments—particularly regarding China’s long-term ambitions and state capacity—have proven … Read more
China’s leadership in automated container terminals is not the result of a single technological breakthrough or merely late entry; rather, it reflects a comprehensive, system-level industrial strategy that aligns infrastructure planning, domestic manufacturing, digital systems, institutional design, labor policy, and global logistics networks. While Singapore, Germany, Japan, and the United States pioneered port automation, China … Read more
Japan’s widely cited technology “missteps”—from CDs over MP3s and hydrogen fuel cells over battery electric vehicles, to ISDB over ATSC/DVB and Blu-ray over streaming—are better understood not as failures of innovation but as the outcome of once-successful strategic assumptions colliding with a changed world. Japan optimized for engineering excellence, incremental refinement, and tightly integrated hardware … Read more
Lee Kuan Yew’s remark that “China wants to be China and accepted as such, not as an honorary member of the West” captures a core truth about China’s modern rise. More than a diplomatic stance, it reflects a civilizational logic that distinguishes China from most other emerging powers. Whereas many postcolonial states have pursued modernization … Read more
In China’s industrial policy, overcapacity is not a failure but a deliberate feature, sharply distinguishing it from the experiences of Western Europe, the United States, and Japan. Whereas liberal market economies tend to view excess capacity as inefficiency and policy error—because firms cannot sustain prolonged losses, governments struggle to coordinate at scale, and political systems … Read more
China has pursued what can be described as a “proof by exhaustion” strategy to avoid the risks of path dependence and technological lock-in. Rather than committing early to a single foreign standard, China systematically explored multiple competing technologies, integrating innovation with scale-driven feedback loops. In earlier decades, China’s long hesitation before selecting one imported system … Read more
Huawei’s trajectory is often misread as a contradiction: a company that adopted American management practices yet became the target of American sanctions. In reality, there is no paradox. By learning from IBM, Huawei internalized the logic of large-scale industrial organization—process discipline, global integration, and operational resilience. It then fused those methods with Chinese organizational norms, … Read more