THE BCPE FRAMEWORK AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN AUTONAMOUS KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM FOR CHINA’S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

This article proposes a dynamic “Basic–Constraint–Purpose–Effect” (BCPE) framework to explain China’s paradox of “stability through transformation” over seven decades. Moving beyond theories that treat the state as a passive market corrector, BCPE operationalizes CCP’s leadership as institutionalized political integrative capacity—manifested in strategic planning, organizational penetration, nationwide coordination, and self-correction. This capacity sustains a dual-loop learning system: an experience-elevation loop that scales local innovations into national policy, and a risk-correction loop that recalibrates goals and institutions in response to systemic failures. Development purposes are not exogenously given but endogenously shaped through the CCP’s evolving diagnosis of the principal societal contradiction, blending normative values (e.g., equity, sustainability) with instrumental concerns. Four middle-range propositions follow: (1) political integrative capacity enhances collective action in large societies; (2) constraints, when cognitively reframed, drive innovation; (3) a strategic state dynamically optimizes multiple, often competing goals; and (4) effective markets and promising government co-evolve through complementary institution-building. Rooted in China’s governance practice yet articulated with generalizable mechanisms, BCPE draws on indigenous epistemic traditions—particularly practical rationality and holistic thinking—while offering testable, boundary-specified claims. It thus advances a path toward an autonomous, globally engaged political economy, providing analytically rigorous tools for understanding adaptive governance in complex developing contexts.