Minxin Pei is watching warily how China's repression of academics, human-rights lawyers and activists, bloggers and independent journalists, writers, artists, business leaders etc. has intensified since Xi Jinping took office in November 2012. While promoting his "China Dream" Xi has also transformed his country into a "nightmare" for anyone who dares to oppose the Communist party and potentially challenge its monopoly of power.

Xi earned praise for showing his resolve in tackling rampant corruption. Both he and Putin have always lamented the demise of the Soviet Union, saying it was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century. Indeed, the Soviet collapse still haunts China's ruling party, and its leadership put the blame in part on corruption in Russia.

However Xi's anti-corruption crusade is reminiscent of Mao’s purge of intellectual and counterrevolutionaries during the Cultural Revolution. More than 100,000 party members have been disciplined since the crackdown began, through a process that is entirely overseen by the party. The public is not invited to take part, with anti-corruption activists being prosecuted and put behind bars. The leadership avoids mass denunciations of corrupt and arrogant officials in public, knowing too well where this path would lead - to the old days of the Cultural Revoulution.

For Xi Jinping China's survival revolves around the Communist party. The persecution of dissidents and anti-government activists aims to defend the party's “ideological security.” It has already been criticised for its ongoing failure to uphold the country’s constitution and laws, so Xi seeks to restore the heart and soul of the party, as well as to boost its image, in order to legitimise its grip on power. Chinese leaders are seen as the embodiment of the party's core. Xi has gone one step further by revamping the military, making him China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.

Both Putin and Xi loathe the "infiltration" of Western democratic values, saying Gorbachev was too carried away by his "Glasnost and Perestroika," which had weakened the Soviet Union, and ultimately led to its collapse, plunging the country into economic and political stagnation and international isolation. Both leaders see any spread of pro-Western thinking as "scornful" of their countries' unique cultural identities.

No doubt Xi is in a dilemma too, torn between “reform and opening” on the one hand and excluding Western influence on the other. This paradox has created an uneasy tension in his presidency. With a booming economy China will have to meet the growing expectations of its citizens, who question a political system, that has "retained its core totalitarian features: a state exempt from the rule of law, a domestic security apparatus with agents and informants virtually everywhere, widespread censorship, and weak protection of individual rights." If the country wants to move forward, it has to abandon the "institutional relics of Maoism" that enhance a fear-based governance.

It is unclear how "Western leaders should be developing strategies for compelling China to rethink its approach." They have adopted China's foreign policy - no meddling in another country's domestic affairs. Indeed, with "China’s international influence growing by the day, the revival of totalitarian scare tactics there has far-reaching – and deeply unsettling – implications for Asia and the world."