The political challenge for China in the future is whether it will be able to find the political ideals and visions to guide the use of its power. At the moment, China is economically prosperous but ideologically bankrupt. It believes in neither communism nor liberal democracy. Besides depriving China of a source of soft power, the lack of appealing ideals and visions for the world is also responsible for the inward-looking mindset of the Chinese leadership, which has so far paid only lip service to calls for China to assume greater international responsibility.
Unlike the United States, China will find its capacity to exercise power abroad greatly constrained by the lack of political integration at home. The Chinese Communist Party may have defied the doomsayers who repeatedly exaggerated its demise in the past. But the party’s political monopoly is by no means secure. It holds on to its power by both delivering satisfactory economic performance and repressing challengers to its authority. As Chinese society grows more sophisticated and autonomous, the party will find it increasingly difficult to deny the rights of political participation to the urban middle-class. As a one-party regime, the Communist Party has also fallen victim to internal corruption. The combination of political challenge from the rising middle-class and progressive internal decay will increase the probability of a regime change in the future, a process that’s likely to be disruptive, even cataclysmic.
