I introduce the three articles in the MOR Editor's Forum on Chinese Capitalism. I then ask whether China's recent economic growth has been driven by a vibrant capitalism or instead has become an end in itself, supported by government policies promoting high rates of fixed asset investment. There are two key observations. First, gross domestic product (GDP), measured and reported at four levels of government, has much greater salience than corporate profits, often undisclosed. Second, fixed asset investment accounted for more than 60 percent of China's 2009 GDP and nearly two-thirds of 2008-2009 GDP growth, levels unprecedented for a major economy. Rather than capitalism, I argue that institutionalized GDP growth today accounts for China's rapid economic development.

China's state-guided economic miracle has revitalized a long-standing and unsettled debate about the role of government in transformative economic development. In a firm-level study of corporate governance we examine whether direct state involvement actually makes a positive contribution to the economic performance of newly incorporated firms in China's urban economy. We show that direct intervention into the governance of firms is likely to yield negative economic effects at the firm level. We infer from our findings that it must be other types of government intervention external to the firm that explain the success of China's developmental state in promoting rapid economic growth.