Fateful Decisions: Choices That Will Shape China's Future (Studies of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center)

China's future is neither inevitable nor immutable: it will be shaped by the choices made to address the multiple interlinked challenges that it faces. 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 These challenges are compounded by the size of China's population, outdated institutions, and the reluctance of powerful elites to make reforms that might threaten their positions, prerogatives, and Communist Party legitimacy.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. "With China's political and economic influence now reaching well beyond its borders, its future course bears significance both domestically and abroad. Predictions abound in anticipation of these consequential "next steps." But in Thomas Fingar and Jean C. Oi's Fateful Decisions, speculating about what may come is eschewed in favor of analyzing what currently is. A collective examination of politics and policy alike, this edited volume illustrates the challenges and high expectations - many of which are the result of its own past successes - that China faces and will need to navigate. But, importantly, it also stresses that the country's direction will be determined as much by conditions and circumstances beyond its control as by its effective internal action. Emphasizing the contingent nature of its future, the book anticipates China's course by focusing on present problems and the ways in which decision-makers might solve them"-- Provided by publisher