In Conversation with Dr. Minxin Pei (Claremont McKenna), "The Broken China Dream: How Reform Revived Totalitarianism" (Princeton U. Press, 2025)

Zoom only at https://csusb.zoom.us/j/388207496

Join us for a conversation with Dr. Minxin Pei (Government, Claremont McKenna College) the author of The Broken China Dream: How Reform Revived Totalitarianism" (Princeton U. Press, 2025). We will have copies of the new book to give away to lucky virtual attendees!

From the publisher's page: "When China embarked on its transformative journey of modernization in 1979, many believed the country’s turn toward capitalism would put its totalitarian past to rest and mark the birth of a democratic, open society. Instead, China reverted to a neo-totalitarian state, one backed by one of the fastest-growing, most formidable economies on earth. The Broken China Dream pulls back the curtain on the regime of strongman Xi Jinping, revealing why the reforms of the post-Mao era have been reversed on nearly every front—and why the world failed to see it coming."

"Exposing the truth behind China’s economic ascendency after the Cultural Revolution, Minxin Pei shows how, following Mao’s death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping strategically deployed the tools of capitalism to preserve the Chinese Communist Party. Deng kept intact the institutional foundations of totalitarianism even as he unleashed private entrepreneurship and courted foreign investment, giving China’s one-party state control of a vast repressive apparatus and the most critical sectors of the economy. Only a fragile balance of power among dueling factions prevented the rise of a totalitarian leader in the two decades after the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989—but this temporary equilibrium collapsed.

"Essential to understanding today’s China, this meticulously researched book is a sobering account of why the country’s reformers and institutions could not stop a shrewd and ruthless politician like Xi from resurrecting dormant totalitarian practices that, for the foreseeable future, have spelled the end of the dream of a free and prosperous China."

Dr. Minxin Pei is the Tom and Margot Pritzker ‘72 Professor of Government and George R. Roberts Fellow at neighboring Claremont McKenna College. In 2019 he was the inaugural Library of Congress Chair on U.S.-China Relations. Prior to joining Claremont McKenna College in 2009, he was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and served as its director of the China Program from 2003 to 2008. He was an opinion columnist for Bloomberg (2023-2024) and the author of From Reform to Revolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union (Harvard, 1994); China’s Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Harvard, 2006); China’s Crony Capitalism: The Dynamics of Regime Decay (Harvard, 2016); The Sentinel State: Surveillance and the Survival of Dictatorship in China (Harvard, 2024); and The Broken China Dream: How Reform Revived Totalitarianism (Princeton, 2025). Professor Pei received his Ph.D. in government at Harvard and taught at Princeton University (1992-1997). He is the recipient of the National Fellowship at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, the Robert McNamara Fellowship of the World Bank, and the Olin Faculty Fellowship. His op-eds and columns have appeared in the New York Times, the WSJ, the Washington Post, FT, Nikkei Asian Review, Project Syndicate, the Economist, Bloomberg, and many other publications.

This event is free and open to the public.

For questions about the event, please contact Jeremy Murray (History), jmurray@csusb.edu

Find past and upcoming events in the Modern China Lecture Series here.

Zoom Meeting Link Back to Events