For China, 2012 was a humbling year. When the history of China’s reform era is written, this moment may prove to be a pivot point, a time when the myths that China and the world had adopted about the politics and economics of the People’s Republic began to wash away, leaving blunt facts about what China’s idiosyncratic national system has and has not achieved. Here are some of the myths that collapsed this year:
1. China’s political system has the efficiency and consensus to produce far-sighted decisions that Washington can only envy.
2. China is destined for a hard landing.
3. There is good corruption and bad corruption, and China’s corruption hasn’t slowed things down.
4. The U.S.-China relationship is too broad and pragmatic to be shaken by human rights.
5. In the fast-changing relations between men and women in China, the losers are the “leftover women.”
6. Finally, China has a political leader who thinks like us.
7. Compared to Americans, the Chinese are cautious, risk averse.
8. The Party has succeeded in blunting the transformative effect of the Internet.
9. The Party itself will be transformed by the Internet.
10. Local bureaucrats might be corrupt, but decision-makers at the top are carefully selected and have deep public approval.
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