[MUSIC] Okay, now I've laid out for you these ten preconditions or these ten processes that need to happen or could happen for China to move towards a more democratic system. A better politically developed system. And I even laid out for you several of the factors internationally that could help create this transition. But if you really ask me, what do I think is the most likely scenario for China for the next 15, 20 years, my own view would be scenario number 2. A continued market Leninism system. Now, why do I say that? First of all, China has had, the Communist party, has had the experience of watching the Soviet Union collapse. And it has learned many lessons from that. Some would argue the wrongs lessons, and I will, say in a few minutes, explain to you how it's possible that that they've learned the wrong lessons. But clearly the lessons that they learned were that the collapse of Gorbachev came about because he introduced political reform. Very serious political reform. In the Russian context they were called glasnost and perestroika, which really meant media opening and kind of political reform and political elections. That he introduced these before economic reform had been successful. So since 1992, the Communist Party in China has been wedded to economic reform with little or no political reform. And then in an early speech, the current leader Xi Jinping emphasized that he was not a Gorbachev. That he would not let the CCP collapse due to some misguided belief that China needed political reform. And so, where do I see these pressures, or the strength of the system to continue to have longer term authoritarianism. First, Xi Jinping, barring some crisis, should remain in power at least through 2022. So that's seven years on from where we are now as I'm taping this in 2015. And, he may even be able to select a successor who will support his policies. So it's possible that even for the next 17 years, we won't see much democratic reform. Xi demonstrates a strong attachment to authoritarianism. He's reintroduced to kind of cultive personality. He wants to use this as a way to maintain support. He's wedded, I mean his key goal is to continue the authority of the Chinese Communist Party and maintain the revolution that his father helped bring about. He's been able to also maintain the loyalty of the army, the PLA, by introducing his own people into military posts. So we don't, even though people may say it, I don't expect to see a military coup against Xi Jinping. Another thing we see is that even before Xi, the party has shown pretty flexible policies, what Andy Nathan once called, authoritarian resilience. And in some ways many people would argue that the party's been remarkably adaptable and responsive to ongoing crises to voices from the society asking for certain changes, raising the problems that the confront and then the party dealing with those. And so, one of those things is, for example, a norm based rotation system, where now we see, rules and norms for selecting the new leader. And we don't get the kind of political crisis, that happened back in 1988, 89. The big fight between the conservatives and the reformers that allowed the students to emerge and gave them too much space, from the party's perspective. And there are some Western, Daniel Bell. As well as Chinese, people like Pan Wei. These are academics who see China possessing and maintaining a very effective meritocracy. A system where, well trained elites come to power and hold public office and this would increase the likelihood of a stable continuing form of market Leninism. And Xi Jinping, in his strategy now, what he calls the Four Comprehensives, has laid out a clear program as to what he sees as necessary to maintain the stability of the Communist Party. And what he sees is a turn. He wants to turn China into a moderately rich society by 2050, following Deng Xiaoping's proposal. Second, he wants comprehensive economic reform based on the 3rd Plenum documents that he put out in 2013, which includes, some would say 60 points. I've heard other people say that if you look at all the little points there's as many as 360 points of reform. Then we've see, he believes strongly in a comprehensive rule of law. Which we've now seen them take the next step at the 4th Plenum in 2014. And, the final comprehensive, his comprehensive party reform, largely through his anti-corruption campaign. A terrific example of Xi Jinping's ability, among his four comprehensives, to use the legal reform introduction of the rule of law as a way to solve problems that the party faces. And a kind of demonstration of these flexible authoritarianism, is that Xi has being using the courts to fight environmental degradation. Now, as a major source unrest comes from these environment problems, Xi's 60 points has really aggressively targeted this issue. According to the South China Morning Post of June 30th, 2015, the environmental minister, Chen Jining told a bi-monthly session of the National People's Congress standing committee, that 3,400 companies and 3,700 construction sites were found to have violated environmental laws in 2014. More than 3,100 workshops were shutdown after this inspections. And according to transcript of his address, published on the National People's Congress official website, he said the the number of criminal cases handed to the police by the environmental protection departments in 2014 had reached 2,080. Twice the total during the previous decade. So, in one year, they've done twice more than the previous decade, and more than 8,400 people were arrested. So, here we can clearly see that Xi Jinping is using the courts to go after and solve this problem of environmental degradation.
