Does China Need an Authoritarian Political System in the Course of Modernization

The question of how China's political system must be redesigned and reorganized to be able to guarantee and promote the reform of the economic system is a question on which a consensus has not yet been achieved in theoretical circles and decision-making circles. A thought-provoking phenomenon is this: While people are generally complaining about how the high degree of authoritarianism in politics is creating a tremendous obstacle to economic liberalization (for instance, the belief that "it took ten long years to reform and open things up, but only one night to bring back the deadly hand of macrocontrol" graphically sums up people's sense of frustration with the powerful administrative authority), at the same time it seems that the development of reform can only come with the support of a political authoritarianism. Today, the following argument is making the rounds: In the process of China's modernization, economic liberalization (market-building, commercialization) can be realized only under conditions of political authoritarianism; therefore, the primary item of reform to be carried out today in the political sphere is not to promote the overall democratization of politics, but to carry out the necessary political authoritarianism and monopolization. The basis for such an argument is that for every country to move toward economic modernization and, beyond that, political modernization, it must go through a stage in which the growth of autocracy or (authoritarian politics) is coordinated with that of a free, or liberalized economy. It is argued, therefore, that the way of developing a free economy through authoritarian politics (autocracy) is the path that China must follow in its reform.1

Argument (complex analysis) · Authoritarianism · Autocracy · China · Democracy · Democratization · Development economics · Economic growth · Economic system · Economics · Liberalization · Market economy · Modernization theory · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Law

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