Stress Testing China’s System Reform
For China, America's rejection of the rules-based multilateral order and embrace of bilateral deal-making creates significant uncertainty. But Chinese policymakers have the tools to overcome the challenge ahead, beginning with the systemic mindset that has shaped decision-making in the country for millennia.
HONG KONG – The historian Wang Gungwu recently observed that, whereas the West thinks in terms of ideologies, China has long thought in terms of systems. In today’s age of rapid and profound change – characterized, in particular, by a fundamental shift in America’s attitude toward the rest of the world – China’s system reform approach is being put to the test.