The Economic and Political History Podcast

China: Rise and Fall | Yasheng Huang with Javier Mejia

Oct 1, 2023

In a captivating discussion, Yasheng Huang, a Professor of international management and author of 'The Rise and Fall of the EAST,' delves into how China's history is shaped by exams, autocracy, stability, and technology. He reveals that the civil service exam, Keju, has stifled creativity while promoting ideological uniformity. Huang argues that China's past successes hinged on balancing scale and scope—a dynamic now threatened under Xi Jinping. He emphasizes the need for diversification to prevent stagnation, drawing compelling lessons from China's trajectory.

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ANECDOTE

Early U.S. Arrival And Cultural Shock

Huang recounts arriving in the U.S. in the early 1980s and feeling cultural shock and ignorance about American heterogeneity.
He used that experience to reflect on differences between Chinese control and U.S. openness.

INSIGHT

EAST Framework Links Past And Present

The EAST framework (Exams, Autocracy, Stability, Technology) explains China's long-run strengths and weaknesses.
Huang links historical institutions like the civil service exam to modern political and technological outcomes.

INSIGHT

Tiananmen Reoriented Reform Thinking

Tiananmen (1989) marked a turning point: political reform hopes collapsed while economic reform accelerated.
Scholarship shifted toward viewing economic change as shaping politics rather than the reverse.

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Interview with Yasheng Huang, author of 'The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline'

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.

--- Javier Mejia is an economist at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine.