Beijing Consensus

Beijing Consensus is a term that represents an alternative economic development model to the Washington Consensus of market-friendly policies promoted by the IMF, World Bank and U.S. Treasury, often for guiding reform in developing countries. While there is no precise definition of the Beijing Consensus, although many have laid out plans, the term has evolved into one describing alternative plans for economic development in the underdeveloped world, so-named as China is seen as a potential model for such actions.

Joshua Cooper Ramo

The term's birth into the mainstream political lexicon was in 2004 when the United Kingdom's Foreign Policy Centre published a paper by Joshua Cooper Ramo titled The Beijing Consensus. [1] In this paper, he laid out three broad guidelines for economic development. Ramo was a former senior editor and foreign editor of Time magazine and later a partner at Kissinger Associates, the consulting firm of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

The first guideline involves a "commitment to innovation and constant experimentation." One of the major criticisms of the Washington Consensus is its complacency. Ramo argues that there is no perfect solution, and that the only true path to success is one that is dynamic, as no one plan works for every situation.

The second guideline states that Per Capita Income (GDP/capita) should not be the lone measure of progress. Rather, Ramo feels that the sustainability of the economic system and an even distribution of wealth, along with GDP, are important indicators of progress.

The third guideline urges a policy of self-determination, where the less-developed nations use leverage to keep the superpowers in check and assure their own financial sovereignty. This includes not only financial self-determination, but also a shift to the most effective military strategy, which Ramo suggests is more likely to be an asymmetric strategy rather than one that seeks direct confrontation. Unlike the Washington Consensus, which largely ignored questions of geo-politics, Ramo argues—particularly in the Chinese context—that geo-politics and geo-economics are fundamentally linked.

Arif Dirlik

One critic of Ramo's plan is University of Oregon professor Arif Dirlik, a "notable specialist in Chinese and in intellectual history," who wrote the paper Beijing Consensus: Beijing "Gongshi." Who Recognizes Whom and to What End. Although Dirlik is intrigued by the concepts and philosophy of Ramo's Beijing Consensus, he says that Ramo's plan is a "Silicon Valley model of development" that ignores the fact that the exploitation of China's labor force by foreign countries was a major part of the Chinese development. Ultimately though, and despite other criticism, Dirlik concludes that the Beijing Consensus does serve an important goal: "The most important aspect of the Beijing Consensus may be an approach to global relationships that seeks, in multinational relationships, a new global order founded on economic relationships, but which also recognizes political and cultural difference as well as differences in regional and national practices within a common global framework."

Further Reading

• Ramo, Joshua The Beijing Consensus (Foreign Policy Centre, May 2004)
• Huang, Yasheng, Rethinking the Beijing Consensus (Asia Policy, January 2011)

See also

• Asian Century
• Development Economics
• Globalism
• Mumbai Consensus
• Seoul Development Consensus
• Washington Consensus