Stanford, California ¨C The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), held in October, confirmed President Xi Jinping and China¡¯s top political leadership for the next five years. But what that means for the Chinese economy going forward will depend on three factors: the state of the country¡¯s institutions, past and current economic conditions, and the leadership¡¯s political intentions.
China¡¯s most fundamental institutions are totalitarian, reflecting and reproducing the CPC¡¯s monopoly control over every facet of society, including the economy. The party-state institutions of totalitarian control were , in full, from the Soviet Union in 1949. When Soviet-style totalitarianism collapsed three decades ago under the dead weight of its economic failures, China appeared to be an exception. The question now is whether China¡¯s own totalitarian experiment can last.
To answer that, one must understand the of ¡°totalitarianism with Chinese characteristics.¡± A key pillar is regionally decentralized totalitarianism (), which combines highly centralized totalitarian control over politics, ideology and personnel with decentralization in administrative and economic affairs.
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