Minxin Pei

Countering recent hype around technology, a leading expert argues that the endurance of dictatorship in China owes less to facial recognition AI and GPS tracking than to the human resources of the Leninist surveillance state. For decades China watchers argued that economic liberalisation and increasing prosperity would bring democracy to the world's most populous country. Instead, the Communist Party's grip...

When Deng Xiaoping launched China on the path to economic reform in the late 1970s, he vowed to build "socialism with Chinese characteristics." More than three decades later, China's efforts to modernise have yielded something very different from the working people's paradise Deng envisioned: an incipient kleptocracy, characterised by endemic corruption, soaring income inequality, and growing social tensions. China's Crony...

Countering recent hype around technology, a leading expert argues that the endurance of dictatorship in China owes less to facial recognition AI and GPS tracking than to the human resources of the Leninist surveillance state. China watchers long argued that economic liberalisation and prosperity would be harbingers of democracy. Instead, the Communist Party's grip has strengthened. How? The answer lies...