As China undergoes its once-a-decade political transition, Chinese and westerners alike wonder whether its new leaders will put the country on a path to openness and transparency. This is morally desirable. More to the point, political liberalisation is a strategic imperative if China is to sustain its rise toward world power status.
The new leaders have their work cut out – from the bursting of China’s demographic bubble and the limits of state-led growth to the suspicion of well-armed neighbours. Yet these problems are intensified by – and inherent to – the nature of the country’s political regime.
Its system of bureaucratic authoritarianism creates incentives for corruption and repression, as the Bo Xilai drama revealed. Western media investigations into the family fortunes of incoming president Xi Jinping and outgoing premier Wen Jiabao have suggested that members amassed extraordinary wealth in ways that correlate with the political success of their patriarchs. This is not a people’s republic.