
The Rise and Fall of the East
How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline
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Narrated by:
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Rebecca Lam
About this listen
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.
©2023 Yasheng Huang (P)2023 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Overreach
- How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise
- By: Susan L. Shirk
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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For three decades after Mao's death in 1976, China's leaders adopted a restrained approach to foreign policy. To facilitate the country's inexorable economic ascendance, and to prevent a backlash, they reassured the outside world of China's peaceful intentions. Then, as Susan Shirk shows, something changed. China went from fragile superpower to global heavyweight. Combining her decades of research and experience, Shirk, one of the world's most respected experts on Chinese politics, argues that we are now fully embroiled in a new cold war.
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Performance is poor
- By Paul Reviewer on 01-28-24
By: Susan L. Shirk
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The World According to China
- By: Elizabeth C. Economy
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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An economic and military superpower with twenty percent of the world's population, China has the wherewithal to transform the international system. Xi Jinping's bold calls for China to "lead in the reform of the global governance system" suggest that he has just such an ambition. But how does he plan to realize it? And what does it mean for the rest of the world? In this compelling book, Elizabeth Economy reveals China's ambitious new strategy to reclaim the country's past glory and reshape the geostrategic landscape in dramatic new ways.
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Excellent Book on China Expansionism
- By WLC on 08-19-22
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Kaput
- The End of the German Miracle
- By: Wolfgang Münchau
- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In Kaput, Wolfgang Münchau argues that the weaknesses of Germany's economy have, in fact, been brewing for decades. The neo-mercantilist policies of the German state, driven by close connections between the country's industrial and political elite, have left Germany technologically behind over-reliant on authoritarian Russia and China—and with little sign of being able to adapt to the digital realities of the 21st century. It is an essential read for anyone interested in the future of Europe's biggest economy.
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a narrow account of germanys troubles
- By Rachel Evan on 05-05-25
By: Wolfgang Münchau
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The Origins of Victory
- How Disruptive Military Innovation Determines the Fates of Great Powers
- By: Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 20 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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This book by military strategist Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., is the definitive take on the race for military dominance in the twenty-first century. It shows how militaries that successfully pursue disruptive innovation can gain a major advantage over their rivals, while those that fail to do so risk exposing their countries to great danger.
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Interesting listen
- By Gerry on 11-11-23
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The Return of Great Powers
- Russia, China, and the Next World War
- By: Jim Sciutto
- Narrated by: Jim Sciutto
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 dawned what Francis Fukuyama called “The End of History.” Three decades later, Jim Sciutto said on CNN’s air as the Ukraine war began, that we are living in a “1939 moment.” History never ended—it barely paused—and the global order as we have known it is now gone. Great powers are reinvigorated and determined to assert dominance on the world stage. And as it escalates, this new order will affect everyone across the globe.
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Disappointing
- By Douglas Peifer on 03-14-24
By: Jim Sciutto
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New Cold Wars
- China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West
- By: David E. Sanger, Mary K. Brooks
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean, David E. Sanger
- Length: 18 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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For years, the United States was confident that the newly democratic Russia and increasingly wealthy China could be lured into a Western-led order that promised prosperity and relative peace—so long as they agreed to Washington’s terms. By the time America emerged from the age of terrorism, it was clear that this had been a fantasy.
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Gives many insights into our new Cold Wars
- By Amazon Customer on 04-19-24
By: David E. Sanger, and others
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China's Economy
- What Everyone Needs to Know®
- By: Arthur R. Kroeber
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know® is a concise introduction to the most astonishing economic growth story of the last three decades. In the 1980s, China was an impoverished backwater, struggling to escape the political turmoil and economic mismanagement of the Mao era. Today it is the world's second biggest economy, the largest manufacturing and trading nation, the consumer of half the world's steel and coal, the biggest source of international tourists, and one of the most influential investors in developing countries from southeast Asia to Africa to Latin America.
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An interesting insight
- By Cole Peters on 11-28-18
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The Long Game
- China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order
- By: Rush Doshi
- Narrated by: Kyle Tait
- Length: 18 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Long Game, Rush Doshi draws from a rich base of Chinese primary sources, including decades worth of party documents, leaked materials, memoirs by party leaders, and a careful analysis of China's conduct to provide a history of China's grand strategy since the end of the Cold War.
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fresh perspective, grand strategic view
- By ndru1 on 02-05-22
By: Rush Doshi
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The Lumumba Plot
- The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination
- By: Stuart A. Reid
- Narrated by: Michael Boatman
- Length: 18 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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It was supposed to be a moment of great optimism, a cause for jubilation. The Congo was at last being set free from Belgium—one of seventeen countries to gain independence in 1960 from ruling European powers. At the helm as prime minister was charismatic nationalist Patrice Lumumba. Just days after the handover, however, the Congo’s new army mutinied, Belgian forces intervened, and Lumumba turned to the United Nations for help in saving his newborn nation from what the press was already calling “the Congo crisis.”
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Somewhere between a bio and a hatchet job
- By Buretto on 12-27-23
By: Stuart A. Reid
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Why Nations Fail
- The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
- By: Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 17 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine?
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Pros and Cons of "Why Nations Fail"
- By Joshua Kim on 05-01-12
By: Daron Acemoglu, and others
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The Nvidia Way
- Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant
- By: Tae Kim
- Narrated by: Michael Braun
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Nvidia is the darling of the age of artificial intelligence: the company’s chips are powering the generative-AI revolution, and demand is insatiable. For all the current interest and attention, however, Nvidia is not of our time. Founded more than three decades ago in a Denny’s in East San Jose, for years it was known primarily in the then-niche world of computer gaming. In fact, the company’s leather-jacketed leader, Jensen Huang, is the longest-serving CEO in an industry marked by near constant turmoil and failure.
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Don’t Buy This Book Be Forewarned
- By Susan Hess on 12-25-24
By: Tae Kim
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Empire of AI
- Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI
- By: Karen Hao
- Narrated by: Karen Hao
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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When AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, the organization was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely mercantile, and potentially dangerous, forces. What could go wrong?
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Well-researched. Timely. Informative. Karen is brilliant and kind!
- By Kahlil Andrews on 05-25-25
By: Karen Hao
Thought provoking
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1. China lagged technologically because it wasn't divided into smaller kingdoms, unlike post-Roman Western Europe.
2. The imperial examination system (Keju) suppressed creativity.
The first point isn't new-many scholars have made similar observations. The second argument, however, is more compelling. Huang provides extensive details about the Keju system, showcasing its complexity. The fact that few modern nations could implement such an intricate system also highlights the Imperial China's impressive organizational capacity.
When discussing recent developments, Huang sticks to mainstream views but peppers his narrative with interesting anecdotes. He seems to view the 1990s-2000s as an ideal period and is entirely critical of Xi Jinping's leadership (which is understandable from a certain point of view). The writing style occasionally resembles that of business consultants, with some sections reading like PowerPoint slides, and that's what really irked me. This came out of an academic press and yet the writing would occassionally devolve into corporate lingo making it feel more like your average pop-business book rather than a scholarly work.
Appalling business-speak
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