ABSTRACT
It has not been easy for the scholarly community to answer this question. Indeed, immediately after the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in 1989, MacFarquhar (1991) predicted that the days of the CCP in China were numbered, and he was not alone at that time in making such a prediction. Of course, contemporaneous arguments were that the CCP would go back to a very traditional and highly centralised rule after the crackdown. No one predicted that the late Deng Xiaoping would make a southern tour and initiate an ever more radical movement of decentralisation, which fundamentally altered the direction of change in China. On reaching the post-Deng era, the question at issue has been
repeatedly raised.3 At the other end of the spectrum from MacFarquhar, optimists are beginning to view China as a model for other parts of the world.4 Still others have made efforts to go beyond simply pessimistic and optimistic positions to reach a more balanced view on China’s future.5
