Kevin J. O’Brienis professor of political science, Alann P. Bedford Professor of Asian Studies, and director of the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. His books include Rightful Resistance in Rural China (with Lianjiang Li, 2006).
The CCP regime has lost support among three groups it should normally be able to count on: street-level police, retired military officers, and state employees who are drafted into stifling dissent on the part of their own relatives.
Read the full essay here. Although China’s farmers did not play a large role in the 1989 protests, they have been quite contentious since. Rural unrest has been triggered in part by reforms and in part by savvy “peasant leaders” who quickly seize opportunities that appear. Recently, many protest leaders have concluded that tame forms…
Although China has achieved extraordinary economic success without the CCP regime loosening its authoritarian grip, can the country continue its growth without political reform?
