A review of From Reform to Revolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union, by Minxin Pei and Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China: Political Reform in the Deng Xiaoping Era, by Merlec Goldman.
About the Author
Jan S. Prybyla is professor of economics at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of Reform in China and Other Socialist Economies (1990).
The same technologies that are making traffic flow faster, cities run better, and ad-targeting more precise are also helping authoritarian governments to crush protests, hunt dissidents, and control their populations.
The regime’s ill-fated policy to eliminate covid from China spurred the largest protests in a generation. It also made Xi Jinping’s challenge of maintaining authoritarian control over Chinese society even…
