The Broken China Dream: How to Reform Revived Totalitarianism | Hoover Institution

Quick Overview

China has returned to a form of totalitarianism under Xi Jinping, a revival made possible because Deng Xiaoping's post-1980s reforms preserved fundamental totalitarian institutions while only suspending totalitarian practices like mass terror and personality cults, creating weak guardrails that Xi dismantled.

Key Points: Professor Minshin Pi identifies three distinct phases in post-1949 China: the turbulent 1980s; the post-Tiananmen period focused on economic performance-based legitimacy (1992-2012); and the current 'new Stalinist new totalitarian period' starting with Xi Jinping's rise in late 2012. Pi argues China is now closer to totalitarianism than authoritarianism, citing evidence like the crackdown in Hong Kong, personality cults, state terror exemplified by Xinjiang concentration camps, and high-tech surveillance, comparing current purges to Cultural Revolution style purges. The institutionalizations of the 1980s, aimed at restoring collective leadership and making elite politics predictable, were incomplete and ineffective, lacking enforcement mechanisms for prohibitions against personality cults and violations of collective leadership. Deng Xiaoping preserved the underlying totalitarian institutions, including the Communist Party's monopoly of power and coercion, which allowed totalitarian practices to be restored quickly when Xi Jinping 'pushed the on switch' after 2012. Economic development did not lead to democracy because the precondition for transition—reformers inside the regime—was absent, especially after the party studied the Soviet collapse and prioritized preventing internal reformers and increasing coercive capacity. While economic development failed to democratize the political system, it transformed Chinese society, evidenced by figures like activist Xu Zhiyong, who thrived during the post-Deng era but was jailed for 15 years under Xi for denouncing COVID-19 handling. If Xi Jinping exits the political scene leaving China in a 'horrible state,' the resulting self-destructive regime behavior could mandate dramatic changes, presenting a window of opportunity similar to the post-Mao period.