ABSTRACT
China's remarkable economic achievement and growing economic strength have stimulated hot debates on the Chinese model of economic development. In a geo-political context, Ramo (2004) first coined the term ‘the Beijing Consensus’ to portray a distinct Chinese model of development, alternative to the neo-liberal formula prescribed by ‘the Washington Consensus’, which had produced mixed results in the economic transformation in Eastern Europe. ‘The Beijing Consensus’ proposes three guidelines for economic development, one of which is the value of innovation. In Ramo's discussions, this guideline actually refers to both technological/industrial innovation and constant policy experimentation. As a critic of Ramo's work, Dirlik (2006: 2) argues ‘[w]hat he [Ramo] offers is a “Silicon Valley Model of Development” that has little to do with the national situations to which he would like to speak’. Dirlik also brings up such issues as the exploitation of China's labour force by foreign countries and severely uneven development in both spatial and social terms as significant downsides of the Chinese development.
