ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the global economic crisis has presented a golden opportunity for China to consolidate its state-developmentalist model. The stimulus program invested heavily in infrastructure, agriculture, science and technology, environment, education, healthcare, and affordable public housing. Facing sharp economic downturn and growing social unrest, the Chinese communist state had abundant reasons to move away from neoliberal capitalism to state-developmentalism. The decline of exports at the onset of the global economic crisis in fall 2008 also induced the state to engineer a rural prosperity policy as part of its effort to shift the driver of economic growth from export-led industrialization to domestic consumption. Reuters reported that 'the European Union pressed China to amend its trade practices to stop technology theft, counterfeiting and discriminating against foreign companies'. Foreign companies also complained loudly that they are being shut out of much of the lucrative govern.
