China Tomorrow: Democracy or Dictatorship? [Hardcover]

Arguing against conventional wisdom, this important book makes a compelling case for the continuing strength of Chinas one-party system. Many analysts have predicted that Chinas unprecedented economic development and middle-class expansion would lead to a liberalization of its political regime and a move toward democracy. Instead, leading scholar Jean-Pierre Cabestan contends that the Chinese Communist Party will continue to adapt and prosper in the coming decades, representing a growing challenge to all democracies. Influenced by Chinas traditional culture and even more so by the regimes Soviet ideology, institutions, and modus operandi, most Chinese are not pushing for democracy, choosing security, stability and prosperity over political freedoms and participation.Jean-Pierre Cabestan is professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University. He is also senior research fellow in Frances National Center for Scientific Research.

China Tomorrow is relevant to protestors demands for democratic elections under universal suffrage, and because he is a professor in Hong Kong, Cabestans analysis has been in demand. China Tomorrows explanation of ways in which freedoms granted often help to consolidate Party leadership over society is useful in understanding the restraint of the party-state and its willingness for disorder in Hong Kong to continue. The China Journal

The book is a careful and structured look at an emerging super power, and especially the carefully constructed party-state as it emerges under Xi. . . . The book makes an important and unapologetic contribution to a more realistic appreciation of modern China. Pacific Affairs

Cabestan has used his long scholarly engagement with China and wide reading to describe the remarkable hybridity of the Communist Party and the ways that this operates as a source of strength and flexibility. This is a nuanced and focused corrective to the more apocalyptic work on China'slSz