Yizi Chen is president and vice-chairman of the board of directors of the Center for Modern China in Princeton, New Jersey. Prior to 1989, he was director of the Institute for Reform of the Economic System in Beijing.
Seymour Martin Lipset argued that economic development would enlarge the middle class, and that the middle class would support democracy. To what extent will this general proposition prove true of China?
The post–post-Mao era has now begun. The reforms that brought economic growth and greater openness to China are being unwound, while an assertive new leader strikes off in a populist and nationalist…