Author: Yasheng Huang, Epoch Foundation Professor of Global Economics and Management at MIT Sloan School of Management; Nonresident Associate, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
About the book
Chinese society has been shaped by the interplay of the EAST—exams, autocracy, stability, and technology—from ancient times through the present. Beginning with the Sui dynasty’s introduction of the civil service exam, known as Keju, in 587 CE—and continuing through the personnel management system used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—Chinese autocracies have developed exceptional tools for homogenizing ideas, norms, and practices. But this uniformity came with a huge downside: stifled creativity.
Yasheng Huang shows how China transitioned from dynamism to extreme stagnation after the Keju was instituted. China’s most prosperous periods, such as during the Tang dynasty (618–907) and under the reformist CCP, occurred when its emphasis on scale (the size of bureaucracy) was balanced with scope (diversity of ideas).
Considering China’s remarkable success over the past half-century, Huang sees signs of danger in the political and economic reversals under Xi Jinping. The CCP has again vaulted conformity above new ideas, reverting to the Keju model that eventually led to technological decline. It is a lesson from China’s own history, Huang argues, that Chinese leaders would be wise to take seriously.
ISBN 9780300266368
August 29, 2023 Yale University Press
420 Pages
“Riveting.”
—Tunku Varadarajan, Wall Street Journal
“Comprehensive and scholarly as one might expect from an economics professor at MIT. . . . [Huang’s] wry dedication—‘to the autocrats of the world. They give us so much to write about’—says it all.”
—James Crabtree, Financial Times
“The rigours of imperial China’s civil-service examination system . . . are described in a new book by Yasheng Huang. . . . Arguing that the exams stifled innovation in ancient times, Professor Huang sees lessons for Xi Jinping’s China.”
—The Economist