Because President Xi Jinping has concentrated more power in his own hands than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, many within China and around the world have concluded that he is politically unassailable.
In contemporary China, profound political transformation can - and has - taken place in the absence of regime change or Western-style democratization.
In a recent commentary, Kevin Rudd, a former Australian prime minister who is now president of the Asia Society, argued that "The crisis, once resolved, will not change how China is governed in the future." But that prognosis is too optimistic.
Who predicted, for example, that an American real-estate mogul would face off with a Chinese princeling in an earth-shaking superpower rivalry, or that China might replace the United States as a champion for capitalist globalization? The current moment of precariousness could well give way to more profound political change.
China bashers who read that sentence should not gloat, because the sudden dissolution of an authoritarian regime does not necessarily lead to democratization; in many cases, it leads to civil war, as we saw in Iraq after the United States forcibly removed Saddam Hussein and as we see today in post-Qaddafi Libya.
A violent power struggle within China would be catastrophic for the entire world.
If a new leader were to take over in 2022 - or even before then - the most likely outcome would be a reset of all of Xi's policy priorities, forcing the rest of the world to revisit its thinking about China and its global role.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-coronavirus-xi-hold-on-power-by-yuen-yuen-ang-2020-02
In contemporary China, profound political transformation can - and has - taken place in the absence of regime change or Western-style democratization.
In a recent commentary, Kevin Rudd, a former Australian prime minister who is now president of the Asia Society, argued that "The crisis, once resolved, will not change how China is governed in the future." But that prognosis is too optimistic.
Who predicted, for example, that an American real-estate mogul would face off with a Chinese princeling in an earth-shaking superpower rivalry, or that China might replace the United States as a champion for capitalist globalization? The current moment of precariousness could well give way to more profound political change.
China bashers who read that sentence should not gloat, because the sudden dissolution of an authoritarian regime does not necessarily lead to democratization; in many cases, it leads to civil war, as we saw in Iraq after the United States forcibly removed Saddam Hussein and as we see today in post-Qaddafi Libya.
A violent power struggle within China would be catastrophic for the entire world.
If a new leader were to take over in 2022 - or even before then - the most likely outcome would be a reset of all of Xi's policy priorities, forcing the rest of the world to revisit its thinking about China and its global role.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-coronavirus-xi-hold-on-power-by-yuen-yuen-ang-2020-02
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