THE “NEW PROJECTMENT ECONOMY” IN THE FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19 AND THE CHINESE STATE CAPABILITIES AS A STRATEGIC POLITICAL FORCE

ABSTRACT This article seeks to show two interconnected phenomena in China. The first is a historical process that took place in the past 40 years involving institutional and qualitative changes in the state-controlled portion of the Chinese economy. Such changes have brought about new and superior forms of economic planning, based on which a higher stage of development pattern has emerged. We call this new development pattern "New Projectment Economy" and it synthesizes a series of state capacities built over time. The second phenomenon relates to how the state capacities created in the past decades have allowed the country to show adaptive flexibility and rapid efficiency in the containment of Covid-19 crisis internally and thus explain China's successful response in the fight against the coronavirus. Such phenomena, pari passu, show China's potential and projection as an international political actor.