Political Implications of China's Technocracy in the Reform Era

This book focuses on the evolution of technocracy in contemporary Chinese politics and its implications in China’s elite politics and policymaking. The rise of technocracy in contemporary Chinese politics is not only attributed to the meritocratic tradition based on civil service exams in ancient China but also tied to the current authoritarian political system that relies on the top-down cadre promotion approach instead of public elections.  Leaders with technocratic backgrounds have brought changes to China’s political landscape since technocrats tend to solve governance issues using technical solutions in an industrialized society as compared to pure politicians and revolutionaries, who are inclined to resort to political, and sometimes populist, options. 

This book examines the specific tech areas from which top technocrats have been emerging in Chinese politics, which include military and aerospace industry, public health, engineering and science, economics and finance, as well as information technology. It is a unique research monograph based on research on China’s evolving technocracy and its political, economic and international implications that provides a detailed and thorough study of the country’s industrial policies being reshaped by these technocrats and their likelihood of joining the Chinese Communist Party’s top echelon in the next five to ten years. 

Gang Chen is an assistant director and senior research fellow of the East Asian Institute (EAI), National University of Singapore. Since he joined the EAI in 2007, he has been tracing China’s politics, foreign policy, environmental and energy policies and publishing extensively on these issues. He is the single author of Politics of Renewable Energy in China (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2019), The Politics of Disaster Management in China: Institutions, Interest Groups, and Social Participation (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), China’s Climate Policy (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), Politics of China's Environmental Protection: Problems and Progress (Singapore: World Scientific, 2009) and The Kyoto Protocol and International Cooperation against Climate Change (in Chinese) (Beijing: Xinhua Press, 2008). His research papers have appeared in internationally refereed journals such as Asian Survey, Asia Pacific Business Review, The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies, The International Spectator, The Polar Journal, China: An International Journal, The Chinese Journal of International Politics and The Journal of East Asian Affairs. He provides consultancy for the Singapore government on environmental and energy issues in East Asia. He is a member of the Association of Chinese Political Studies based in the USA. He is frequently interviewed by media like Bloomberg TV, The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, NHK, Channel NewsAsia and Xinhua News Agency. He sometimes gives lectures at the Business School of the National University of Singapore, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore and Singapore Environment Institute. He helps the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy to design the “Public Sector Risk Management” curriculum for MPA students. He is a member of the Global Emerging Voices program jointly sponsored by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Stiftung Mercator, Torino World Affairs Institute and Australian National University. He has participated in various international research projects like the “EU-Asia Dialogue” co-funded by the European Union and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) of Germany and the Asian Energy Program sponsored by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.