ABSTRACT
The past three decades have witnessed China’s market-oriented economic reform and rapid economic growth. The consensus, however, is that China has not undertaken meaningful political reforms in comparison with the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The question then naturally arises: without some form of political reform, would China’s relatively successful market transition and economic development be conceivable and sustained? Or put in a different way, is a totalitarian social and political structure compatible with the market economy?
