Can China's remarkable, rapid emergence as a large economy and technological power be attributed to specific policies, and more generally to a Chinese program of industrial policy? More simply put: What is it that China has done right?  This is the fundamental question that Barry Naughton addresses in his extended essay.

Disentangling the threads of China's industrial policies since 1978, Naughton argues that a distinctive, "government-steered market economy", a term articulated by the country's policymakers, is indeed taking shape and warrants serious...