On the Beijing Consensus

Some days ago I was writing an article for an Italian e-zine "l'Arengo del Viaggiatore", when I came across an interesting and (I then learned) quite important report by the former journalist of the Time and consultant of Goldman Sachs Joshua Cooper Ramo.
In his report, which dates back to 2004, he argues that a new international consensus is emerging: he calls it "the Beijing Consensus", for the People's Republic has a central role in inspiring it. Moreover, it represents the overcoming of the old "Washington Consensus" which has been praised, as well as fiercely criticized, during the last twenty years.

The issue of the future geopolitical equilibria, and the role that China will undoubtedly have in them, is of course fascinating.
Mr. Cooper Ramo shows a great deal in managing the complexity of several sources of information to give a self-consistent explanation of what we are experiencing today and the recent trends (e.g. the increasing role of China's investments in Sub-Saharian Africa).
In some senses, I believe that the idea of seeing China as a blueprint of the failures of the Washington Consensus is undoubtedly true: at least, this is how developing countries are perceiving it.
Nonetheless, the main idea is somehow naive. Indeed, in my very humble opinion, Beijing Consensus:
- is too less problematic
- overlooks the role of the other emerging countries (notably, Brasil, India, and Russia)
- is non-storicistic in defining China as a "non-ideologic country" that believes that every country should find its way to development. It is true that this is China's opinion at present. Nonetheless, I argue that, when it comes to geopolitics, cultural differences are really not that important. China's ideas reflect its emerging role, while the "imperialistic" approach of the American New-conservatorism may be considered the byproduct of a phase of decay of a well-established super-power. When and if things will change, I think (and I'm a bit afraid of it) China may want to reconsider its "soft power" strategy. It is a matter of tactics and power, not an issue of ideology.

I think a good example of this naive view can be read in an article published in the Chinese newspaper "People's Daily" (in english). Looks like the two Chinese academics are driven mostly by nationalism and by their faith in the future, so that the resulting debate is nothing but a big praise of the new "Consensus".

Actually, that is what I don't like about political sciences: they give too huge a scope for partisanship. It is not that economics does not allow people to be partisans, it is just a bit more difficult to be so thanks to mathematics and statistics!