China Beyond Coronavirus

How Not to Democratize China

A new book by Ci Jiwei argues that the Communist Party must lead China’s transition to democracy from the top down. But such a process would be a contradiction in terms—and would result in no democracy at all.

Steven I. Levine is Senior Fellow at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center at the University of Montana, and author of Anvil of Victory: The Communist Revolution in Manchuria, 1945-1948, co-author with Michael H. Hunt of Arc of Empire: America’s Wars in Asia from the Philippines to Vietnam, and editor and translator from Chinese and Russian of books on Chinese and Russian history and politics.