China's Democratic Future
How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead
-
- 34,99 €
-
- 34,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
The end of communist rule in China will be one of the most momentous events of the twenty-first century, sounding the death knell for the Marxist-Leninist experiment and changing the lives of a fifth of humanity. This book provides a likely blow-by-blow account of how the Chinese Communist Party will be removed from power and how a new democracy will be born.
In more than half a century of rule, the Chinese Communist Party has turned a poor and benighted China into a moderately well-off and increasingly influential nation. Yet the Party has failed to keep pace with change since stepping aside from daily life in the late-1970s. After nearly a hundred years of frustrating attempts to create a workable political system following the overthrow of the last dynasty, the prospects for democracy in China are better than ever, according to Bruce Gilley.
Gilley predicts an elite-led transformation rather than a popular-led overthrow. He profiles the key actors and looks at the response of excluded elites, such as the military, as well as interested parties such as Taiwan and Tibet. He explains how democracy in China will be very "Chinese," even as it will also embody fundamental universal liberal features. He deals with competing interests—regional, sectoral, and class—of China's economy and society under democracy, addressing the pressing concerns of world business. Finally he considers the implications for Asia as well as for the United States.
The end of communist rule in China will be one of the most momentous events of the twenty-first century, sounding the death knell for the Marxist-Leninist experiment and changing the lives of a fifth of humanity. This book provides a likely blow-by-blow account of how the Chinese Communist Party will be removed from power and how a new democracy will be born.
In more than half a century of rule, the Chinese Communist Party has turned a poor and benighted China into a moderately well-off and increasingly influential nation. Yet the Party has failed to keep pace with change since stepping aside from daily life in the late-1970s. After nearly a hundred years of frustrating attempts to create a workable political system following the overthrow of the last dynasty, the prospects for democracy in China are better than ever, according to Bruce Gilley.
Gilley predicts an elite-led transformation rather than a popular-led overthrow. He profiles the key actors and looks at the response of excluded elites, such as the military, as well as interested parties such as Taiwan and Tibet. He explains how democracy in China will be very "Chinese," even as it will also embody fundamental universal liberal features. He deals with competing interests—regional, sectoral, and class—of China's economy and society under democracy, addressing the pressing concerns of world business. Finally he considers the implications for Asia as well as for the United States.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This book is an optimistic prediction from a journalist with more than a decade's experience reporting for the Far Eastern Economic Review. Gilley argues, against Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, that China's culture is not alien to democratic possibilities and that democratization will result not from popular overthrow of the existing Communist one-party state but through gradual reform from above. He anticipates a "revolution in values" through which the elite will becomes more public-spirited and less self-interested. Such faith in a moral elite is a prominent shared theme in both Eastern and Western political philosophies, but recent trends in Chinese political culture point toward deepening corruption and cynicism rather than such a moral revival. Gilley's arguments and evidence are thoughtful, provocative and well expressed, but his optimism seems forced. He sees hope in the contradiction between aspirations and opportunities generated by a market economy and the restrictions of an autocratic political system. He speaks of "Society" versus the "State." However, this neat dichotomy obscures the reality that most of China's business elite is successful because of close ties to state officials; the one-party bureaucratic state is part of what stabilizes the fortunes of those now on top. Multiparty political competition and true rule of law could be more dangerous to China's business elite than muddling through with the bureaucratic devil they already know. Though Gilley may overestimate the incentive for insiders to promote democratization, this book is an important contribution to the debate about China's future.
