David Frum: A decade ago, you broke ranks with almost all conventional China expertise and predicted that the People’s Republic would not successfully transition toward true economic and political freedom. Why were so many people so wrong? These were knowledgeable and intelligent people. What misled them so badly?

Minxin Pei: I would say many people were too dazzled by the superficial changes, especially economic changes, to realize that the Communist Party’s objective is to stay in power, not to reform itself out of existence. Economic reform or, to be more exact, adopting some capitalist practices and embracing market in some areas, is only a means to a political end. In fact, Deng Xiaoping made it crystal clear when he started the reform, but unfortunately many observers, including China-watchers, failed to read him correctly. They have made other mistakes as well. For example, they overlooked the nature of the Chinese regime. It is not your garden-variety dictatorship, but a successor to a totalitarian regime. It is both far more ruthless and determined to protect its power than an average dictatorship and far more capable of doing so.

Frum: Some of them might have said, “Well, whatever the regime may imagine it is doing, in fact it is opening a door it will not be able to close. Liberalization has an irresistible logic all its own.” Was that an unreasonable thing to think?

Pei: In the Chinese case, the door was never fully open in the first place. So the forces that try to make it less open or close it have a less difficult time to do so. Additionally, when China was forced to keep the door more open, it was in a weaker position relative to the forces outside—the West in general and the U.S. in particular. But when the conservative forces inside China gain strength while the West appears to be in decline, those forces are far more likely and able to close the door again, as is happening right now. So, while the logic of irresistible liberalization appears to be reasonable on the surface, it overlooks the underlying reality of power.

Frum: Has the door closed? How decisively has China turned toward profounder authoritarianism with this grab by President Xi for lifetime rule?

Pei: Politically, the door is probably 90-95 percent closed. Substantive exchanges between China and the outside in the so-called sensitive areas—especially involving serious academic exchanges and civil society—are a fraction today compared with the pre-Xi era. Economically, the door is much less open, probably the least open since the reform era began nearly four decades ago. There is a growing consensus that China today is the least open since the end of the Cultural Revolution. That is a very devastating comment on the political conditions there.

Frum: Now let’s step back in time. You published in 2006, before the Great Recession, at a time when the Chinese state reported economic growth in excess of 10 percent per year. At that time, it was a popular game to calculate when China would overtake the U.S. in absolute economic size. That was the year you warned: This will all soon slow, and perhaps even halt, because of pressure from above motivated by fear of power-competitors below. What did you then perceive to lead you to this conclusion?