Beijing Drama: China's Governance Crisis and Bush's New Challenge

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Beijing Drama: China's Governance Crisis and Bush's New Challenge

By Minxin Pei

Published on Nov 5, 2002

Source: Carnegie

China's leadership transition occurs at a critical juncture. Beijing's new leaders face an emerging governance crisis that consists of a decaying ruling party, deteriorating state capacity, and brewing regime-society tensions. This crisis originates in the fundamental incompatibility between the Chinese Communist Party's goal of perpetuating one-party rule and the market-oriented reforms it has pursued to achieve this goal. If left unresolved, China's governance crisis could lead to long-term stagnation and social instability. Beijing's new leaders must confront this crisis with long-delayed political reforms. Moreover, China's internal weakness poses a difficult challenge to the Bush administration and calls for a rethinking of the assumptions underlying Washington's China policy.

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About the Author
Minxin Pei is senior associate and codirector of the Endowment's China Program. He is the coauthor of Rebalancing United States—China Relations (Carnegie Endowment Policy Brief No. 13) and author of Future Shock: The WTO and Political Change in China (Carnegie Endowment Policy Brief No. 3).

About the Author

Minxin Pei

Former Adjunct Senior Associate, Asia Program

Pei is Tom and Margot Pritzker ‘72 Professor of Government and the director of the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at Claremont McKenna College.

Recent Work

In The Media
How China Can Avoid the Next Conflict
- Minxin Pei
In The Media
Small Change
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Democracy Military Foreign Policy United States China

Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

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