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China’s domestic political arrangements often fuel
misgivings about
the rise of
China in the
West. While
liberals are
optimistic about
the effects of
China’s economic
change on
long-term
political
liberalization,
realists remain
skeptical of
China’s
illiberal
political
institutions and
see aggressive
deterrence as
the best
strategy to
confront an
ascending China.
Central to the
perception and
suspicion of
China as an
illiberal regime
is the tenacity
of the one party
system, and a
communist party
at that. Whether
a rising China
under a
non-Communist
dictatorship
would evoke as
much mistrust is
anyone’s guess,
but being under
a Communist one
certainly seems
to make things
worse.
In this
talk I will show
that the
Communist Party
has changed
significantly in
the major areas
that have given
rise to
misgivings about
its
predictability
and norms. Some
of these changes
have been
responses to the
changing
socio-economic
forces; while
others—and the
more important
ones—have been
instituted by
the party
leadership. Out
of these changes
emerges a
one-dominant-party
system that may
not conform to
expectations of
liberal
democracy, but
increasingly
more closely to
Chinese cultural
values and
traditions: a
Confucian-style
policy.
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