Mario Esteban writes that since the failure of the Washington Consensus –which the United States began to export actively to a number of emerging countries during the 1990′s– the world has witnessed the rise of China, and with it, the birth of the Beijing Consensus. This new model for development is based on an authoritarian government with strongly interventionist policies in regards to its economy. Esteban conjectures that the example of China is attractive not only to authoritarian leaders around the world but also to democratic regimes like Brazil, India, and South Africa who welcome the growing strength of China, and the creation of a multilateral world order.

Martin Varsavsky has visited China and several other Asian countries in the past few days and had the opportunity to take notes about his own personal ideas on the main political, economical and cultural issues regarding the Asian giant. Varsavsky analyzes here a couple of brief bullet points on Democracy and Taiwan, cars, pollution and public health, and analyzes piracy, the yen, soy sauce, Mao Tse Tung, economic growth and (if it’s possible) liberty of press.