DAVOS, Switzerland — A lot of people at the World Economic Forum are talking about the Beijing consensus. But there is no consensus about what the China’s economic growth model actually is.

Concern about that model somehow challenging Western democratic capitalism runs deep here at a time when China has become the No.2 economy, surpassing Japan and gaining on the United States. It faces none of the problems many rich countries are grappling with after the financial crisis: debt mountains, high unemployment and political gridlock.

But what actually characterizes the Chinese model? A Chinese economist here at Davos, who preferred to remain anonymous, tried to shed some light on the question, citing four key characteristics he said defined Beijing’s communist-capitalist-Confucian system.

Policy toolkit: The Chinese authorities have a much larger toolkit to interfere in the economy, he said. They can regulate and tax and hand out contracts like in the West. But they also can — and don’t hesitate to — meddle in financial markets if they feel a share price, for example, is not at the right level.

Corporate allegiance: Many companies are not only state-owned, but are accountable to the government as well. The government picks the management and managers report to the government. They are motivated less by pay than their Western counterparts, mainly because they are paid less: Even the boss of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world’s biggest bank by some measures, reportedly earns less than $200,000 a year.

Resources: Beijing controls unusually large resources. They not only have nearly $3 trillion in currency reserves and get a steady stream of profit from state-owned business but they also control all the land. “Fiscal problems do not exist in China,” the economist said. “If they authorities need money they can just sell some land.”

Long-term planning: The authorities in Beijing set long-term strategic priorities and then systematically pursue them in five-year-plans.

For democracies committed to the rule of law and the free — although perhaps more regulated — market, there is not a whole lot that can be adopted from this list. But several Western economists here are urging that at least more long-term strategic thinking be tried, even if Western electoral politics makes that difficult.

The man the Communist Party is busy grooming to be China’s next leader can be read in so many ways.

He is a communist “princeling,” the equivalent of royalty in the Party, born into power and privilege but who then lived in a cave.
He is a man who has spent his life in the Communist Party but who knows what it is like to be outcast.

He has convinced businessmen he is their champion, while overseeing a system where the state controls huge chunks of the economy.

He has shown himself to be irritated with foreign criticism of China but has sent his daughter to study at Harvard under a false name to hide her identity.

His wife, Peng Liyuan, a singer, has, for most of his career, been far more famous than he has.

Mike Daisey was a self-described “worshipper in the cult of Mac.” Then he saw some photos from a new iPhone, taken by workers at the factory where it was made. Mike wondered: Who makes all my crap? He traveled to China to find out.

It seems that our fetishization of new technology has blinded us to blatant abuse of the workers of the world. This is a much needed reminder and a critical view of Foxconn.

Two short articles. One on China and Tibetan Buddhism, the other on China vs. the Vatican.

On May 23rd four people went to a police station in Beijing with a petition demanding justice. Victims of official wrongdoing often make such trips, and usually they are given short shrift. But this was no ordinary group of the downtrodden. The petition bore the names of nearly 10,000 people accusing a liberal intellectual of slandering Mao Zedong and attempting to overthrow the Communist Party itself. Emboldened by a chill political wind, diehard Maoists in China are rising to confront their critics.
The Maoists’ appeal for the arrest of Mao Yushi, a well-known economist (and no relation of the late chairman), is their most concerted public attempt in many years to put pressure on the government. A clutch of Maoist websites frequently vilify intellectuals such as Mr Mao. But campaigning openly for someone to be put on trial is unusual. It is a symptom of a recent escalation of ideological struggles between China’s West-leaning liberals and conservative hardliners.