Comparative Education Bulletin - Faculty of Education - The ...

China’s development model is very different from the current
development discourse of the West. For example, the Bretton-
Woods institutions have established a set of recommendations (and
in many cases, loan conditionalities) setting the economic path for
developing countries. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund
and World Trade Organization, in particular, have been criticized for
the propagation of a market-based development approach, oftencalled
market fundamentalism, neoliberalism, or the “Washington
Consensus”. The Washington Consensus, based on the Hayekinspired
economic policies of Thatcher and Reagan in the 1980s,
promotes fiscal discipline, financial liberalization, tax reform (including
cutting marginal taxes), and generally the privatization of social
services. Its fundamental idea is that unhindered market exchanges
provide the driving force of economic growth. Neoliberalism and the
Washington Consensus were criticized for their undesirable effects, e.g.,
deregulation and privatization led to less public expenditure for health
and education.
A second Consensus, reached at the 1998 Summit of the Americas
in Santiago, Chile, recognized the existence of market failure and
the need for government intervention in certain sectors. The shift
from the Washington to the Santiago Consensus (or Post-Washington
Consensus) was, however, superficial, insomuch as development was
still envisioned as market-based, although it was acknowledged that
there is a role for government involvement, especially in public health
and education.
China, not adopting the neoliberal cooperation discourse of the
West, has followed a path that, in view of the country’s spectacular
economic growth, has been hailed as illustrating a third model, the
“Beijing Consensus”. This development strategy is, according to
Joshua C. Ramo of the Foreign Policy Centre (who coined the term of
“Beijing Consensus”), based on three pillars, which include innovationand
knowledge-led growth, a focus on the quality of life (instead
of economic performance), and self determination (Ramo, 2004).
China’s government officially denies the existence of a Beijing model
(Sautman and Yan, 2006). However, Chinese academic economists tout
the superiority of the Beijing Consensus as opposed to Washington’
s neoliberal model (Zhang, 2004; Huang and Cui, 2005; and Wang,
2005). Also, observers reckon that the Chinese government needs other
nations buy in to its world-view and in particular to its international
agenda of a “Peaceful Rise” (Ramo, 2004).
One of the means China can use to propagate its development
views is through the International Poverty Reduction Centre in
China (IPRCC). In 2005, the government and the UNDP set up this
centre with the aim of gathering and distributing lessons on poverty
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