Content area
Full Text
more than a whole cycle of the chinese zodiac has elapsed since the special issue of Social Research, "China in Transition," was published in 2006. After 12 years, China's transition is not towards democracy but towards a kind of neo-totalitarianism. During this period, Liu Xiaobo, who had written in that issue on the growing influence of civil society, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and died in prison, while his wife was placed under house arrest for almost a decade. The year 2008 was a watershed, as the financial crisis dealt a serious blow to the Washington Consensus, while the successful organization of the Olympic Games by Beijing impressed the world. The Chinese leadership used this opportunity to become more assertive on the international scene, presenting its regime as a credible alternative to Western democracy and the market economy that had led the world to an unprecedented crisis. Liu Xiaobo's dream of a strong civil society capable of putting an end to the Communist Party's dictatorship has vanished.
Donald Trump's election, the success of populist candidates in Central and Eastern Europe, and the advent of a coalition government in Italy that includes the far right have dealt a further blow to liberal democracy: Francis Fukuyama's expectation of "the end of history" has faded. Whereas in the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union, there had been an attempt at reconstructing an international order according to the principles of democracy and multilateralism, since the beginning of the twenty-first century, conflicts have multiplied, multilateralism has lost its luster, and the rise of nationalism in many parts of the world has challenged the mere idea of an international community. The ascents to power of Vladimir Putin in Russia, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, and Viktor Orbán in Hungary have signaled the rise of a new era of authoritarianism. Xi Jinping's rule is one of the best examples of this new trend.
Since Xi became the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) head in 2012, the international situation has been very favorable for China. Trump's decision to withdraw from the leadership of the Western world in order to "make America great again" has paved the way for Xi's achievement of the "China Dream" (Zhongguo meng)—an appeal to...