China After Deng: Ten Scenarios in Search of Reality

Abstract

With Deng Xiaoping preparing to “meet Marx,” speculation over the future shape and stability of the Chinese polity has mounted steadily. In the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen crisis some observers predicted the early demise of China's Communist regime, triggered by a dramatic breakthrough on the part of resurgent democratic forces.1 When the regime failed to collapse as expected, attention was drawn to the apparent absence of such putative prerequisites of “civil society” as semi–autonomous social forces, civic associations and a well–defined “public sphere.” China, it seemed, wasn't quite ready for democracy after all.