As the unipolar world goes through rupture, with national discontents like slow growth and de-industrialization, countries are searching for pathways out of the deadlock. This is true of the Global South countries as much as it is for the Global North. In the latter, right-wing movements are growing, scapegoating globalization and China's manufacturing dominance.

In the Global South, the search is on for better and more effective development models that can drive industrial development and national reconstruction. As a country with the most networked and embedded trade in the Global South in general and Africa in particular, China's development success is used as a benchmark of what is possible. The readouts of multilateral platforms like the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and BRICS Plus bear testament to this thesis.

The same resonates in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) engagements. (The BRI is a China-proposed initiative to boost connectivity along and beyond the ancient Silk Road routes—Ed.)

However, some questions continue to be asked: Does China present the best or most relevant development template, for Africa in particular and the Global South in general, given its unique history and political system? Will our political systems have to adapt for China's model to work in Africa? Sometimes, I believe, these are non-questions. The real question is: What are the fundaments in China's economic growth and anti-poverty miracles that offer a mirror for reflection, not a template for replication, in the Global South? A new political economy book from China provides answers.

Party Life: Chinese Governance and the World Beyond Liberalism (2023) by Chinese scholar Eric Li contains some useful takeaways from China's development system for the Global South.

As one of the most active and original voices examining China's role in a post-liberal world, Li speaks not only to the West, but from within the Global South, offering a perspective shaped by China's indigenous traditions, developmental experience and a belief in national sovereignty. This book is an invitation for developing countries to reimagine their paths to modernity without simply mimicking the West.

Performance-based politics

According to Li, the Communist Party of China (CPC) derives its legitimacy from performance, measured in poverty reduction, infrastructure development, national stability and rising living standards. He contrasts this with Western democracies, where procedural legitimacy often fails to deliver material outcomes, resulting in political disillusionment and systemic gridlock.

Takeaway 1: "Development-first" governance can trump ballot-box legitimacy. States can prioritize infrastructure and social and economic transformation before liberal institutionalism.

Li outlines how the CPC recruits and promotes cadres through a process that emphasizes ability, competence, experience and ideological commitment. While not without its limitations, this system has produced a technocratic elite capable of managing complex transformations within four decades.

Takeaway 2: Building bureaucracies that reward competence, not clientelism. In many post-colonial states, bureaucratic posts are doled out as political favors. Reforming civil services to focus on merit, as China has done, strengthens policy continuity and institutional capacity.

Takeaway 3: Leadership pipelines need long horizons. One key advantage of China's model is the long grooming of leaders through local, regional and national posts. This provides experience and filters out incompetence. Fast-turnover democracies often fail to produce such depth.

The Chinese system is driven less by rigid doctrine and more by flexible problem-solving. Rooted in Confucian ideas of harmony and order, the CPC adapts policies to changing conditions, unlike Western states often paralyzed by ideological divisions and complex decision-making processes.

Takeaway 4: Political flexibility is a strength, not a weakness. Many post-colonial states adopted rigid ideological templates, with limited room for correction and adaptation. China's example shows the advantage of "crossing the river by feeling the stones," as former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping famously said. This is an important mirror for any form of a political party to build their own capabilities to effectively lead public affairs.

Takeaway 5: Indigenous traditions are legitimate political resources. The revival of Confucian principles as a foundation of governance challenges the notion that modernity must mean Westernization and universalism. Leaders in Africa, Latin America and South Asia can draw on their own philosophical and ethical traditions to shape governance. Their contexts matter the most, instead of templates dictated by foreign agendas.

Li demolishes the assumption that economic and social progress must come bundled with Western-style democracy. China has modernized without embracing the core tenets of Western democracy.

Takeaway 6: Separating the end (modernization) from the means (liberalism). Too many countries in the Global South have swallowed Western democracy as a development condition, often under pressure from donors or international institutions, without building effective states. China offers proof that alternative models can work. Mariana Mazzucato, a professor of the economics of innovation and public value at University College London, the United Kingdom, warns against the "infantilization of the state" through the outsourcing of development agendas. She envisages states that drive missions, much like China has through its reform and opening up, which first got underway in 1978.

Li advocates a "world safe for pluralism" where nations choose their developmental path without Western ideological imposition. He views the China-proposed Global Development Initiative and BRI as practical alternatives to a fading liberal international order.

Takeaway 7: Embracing a multipolar order as an opportunity. For countries weary of Western conditionality, China's rise offers a different source of capital, infrastructure and ideas. This does not mean embracing Chinese dominance, but recognizing the value of strategic plurality. And they must negotiate the best deals for their countries.

A mirror, not a template

This book is not an attack on Western democracy, but an honest look into how we in Africa, regardless of our political systems, can govern and serve better. Party Life is not a blueprint, and China's model is not a universal template. Rather, it holds up a mirror to the Global South, inviting introspection, contextual innovation and strategic confidence in forging development paths grounded in local realities.

Why, Li asks, should success only be measured by Western approval? Why should legitimacy flow from ballot boxes if they are easily hijacked? And why should ancient civilizations have to erase themselves to be considered "modern? "

His voice offers an important corrective to the often-uncritical embrace of Western models in post-colonial societies. For leaders and intellectuals in the Global South, Party Life is not a sermon, but a challenge: To think for themselves, to study their traditions and to build systems that work, not just sound good. BR

The author is principal of the National School of Government of South Africa. This article was first published in ChinAfrica magazine

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon

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