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Part I. Introduction -- 1. Forward -- 2. Yao Yang: Public Intellectual, Liberal Economist, Confucian Pragmatist -- 3. Is a New Cold War Coming? - Part II. My family, my village and China's modernization -- 4. The vanishing town -- 5. Three days back in the village -- 6. Before my grandfather's portrait -- 7. My view of revolutionary history -- 8. China's path of modernization and its implications for the rest of the world -- Part III. New wine in an old bottle: a new interpretation of Confucianism -- 9. The Confucian state: An ideal type of governance for China? -- 10. Go beyond liberal democracy: insights from Confucianism -- 11. Confucianism and liberalism: An ideal type of governance for China? -- 12. Confucianism and common prosperity -- 13. Restoring the true face of politics in Chinese history: Qian Mu and his book Successes and Failures of Chinese Politics Throughout the Ages -- Part IV. Turning back to China: Understanding the CCP -- 14. The End of Ideology? -- 15. The Dilemma of China's democratization -- 16. Understanding the Chinese Communist Party System -- 17. Sinification of Marxism: The CCP's most urgent ideological challenge.

China's remarkable economic growth is often attributed to strong government intervention that can mobilize large amounts of resources to clear any bottleneck to growth or institutional change. This approach is often referred to as the Beijing Consensus (BC) as compared to the Washington Consensus (WC): the former being a model of authoritarianism and heavy state involvement in the economy, the latter a model of neoliberal and market-oriented doctrines. But these characterizations are inaccurate.

In the last 30 years, China has achieved high economic growth and successfully transformed its economy from a planned economy to a market-based system. The country, to a large extent, has attained success through the recommendations proposed by standard economic theory. However, the role of political economy has been omitted from the literature: how did China adopt the right economic policies and the appropriate road to reform? This paper attempts to answer this question. The central assumption of the paper is that China achieved success because the Chinese government has been a disinterested party, i.e., a government that does not favour any particular sections of the population and prioritizes the long-term welfare of the whole society. In this paper, we first define and analyse the concept of disinterested governments, and then proceed to provide several examples to demonstrate that China has been characterized by a disinterested government. Based on a theoretical model, we also discuss the reasons of the Chinese government becoming a disinterested government.

"This is an authored volume of Dr. Yao's 'big-picture' writings on China and the West, translated by David Ownby. Those writings are selected from his writings as a public intellectual, reflecting his thought on China's path of modernization and the effort to rebuild a political philosophy based on Confucianism, his interpretation of China's political system and his prescriptions to improve it. A moderate, yet influential scholar, Yao's work has had great influence on Chinese social and economic policymakers; his project of renewing China's traditional value system is an important position, as Chinese reforms begin to focus on equity and inclusion. In an engaging, at times personal, and thoughtful volume, Dr. Yao's vision of a gentler Chinese society will interest Sinologists, political scientists, and journalists."--