The Transition from Neoliberalism to State Neoliberalism in China at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century

Neoliberalism emerged in the late 1970s as a new policy framework to guide the development orientation in not only the South but also the North and the East. In the 1990s neoliberalism found expression in the so-called Washington Consensus as a way of articulating the economic orthodoxy that prevailed in the U.S. Treasury Department, the World Bank, and the IMF. Beeson and Islam (2005, 4) point out that neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus are meant to favour the unfettered operation of the market and to roll back the reach of the state. The states, in both rich and poor nations, have been urged to embrace “macroeconomic prudence” (a euphemism for control of inflation and for maintaining tight budgets), deregulation, privatisation, trade and financial liberalisation, lower taxes, and small government.