{"id":7566,"date":"2026-05-07T13:00:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T13:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/?p=7566"},"modified":"2026-05-07T14:30:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:30:54","slug":"the-historical-origins-of-the-resilience-of-the-contemporary-chinese-political-and-economic-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/the-historical-origins-of-the-resilience-of-the-contemporary-chinese-political-and-economic-model\/","title":{"rendered":"The historical origins of the resilience of the contemporary Chinese political and economic model."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Article by Robin Rivaton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Xu Chenggang (born in 1957) is a Chinese political economist whose work focuses on China\u2019s transition to a market economy and the institutions of state capitalism. He taught for a long time at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and is now affiliated with the Stanford Center on China\u2019s Economy and Institutions. His work is situated within institutional economics and comparative politics. His main contribution focuses on how China succeeded in its economic reforms without political democratization, by analyzing the role of local governments, decentralization, and bureaucratic incentives within an authoritarian system. He is notably known for his thesis according to which the Chinese system rests on a form of authoritarian decentralization, where local authorities experiment and stimulate growth while remaining under central political control.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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We wished to present to the readers of Nouveaux Regards sur l\u2019Asie<\/em> his latest work in which he proposes the idea that political and economic systems carry \u201cinstitutional genes\u201d inherited from their history and that durably shape their trajectories. This is the case here for China.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Published in June 2025, the book Institutional Genes: Origins of China\u2019s Institutions and Totalitarianism<\/em>[1] by Xu Chenggang proposes a global and structured interpretation of Chinese institutional history and of the persistence of its authoritarian political regime. The central objective of the author is to explain why China, unlike other societies that have adopted the Western capitalist model, has not evolved toward a liberal democracy, but has instead produced a durable form of totalitarianism, nevertheless capable of generating rapid and sustained economic and technological growth.<\/p>\n

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To answer this enigma or paradox, Xu mobilizes an original theory based on the idea of \u201cinstitutional genes,\u201d which he defines as fundamental and deeply rooted elements of institutional systems, reproducing themselves over time, shaping the behavior of actors, and strongly limiting the possible trajectories of political transformation. Through this idea, the Chinese scholar seeks to explain the remarkable continuity of the Chinese political system, beyond the major economic transformations that have taken place since the end of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

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In this perspective, institutions are not conceived as contingent or easily reformable arrangements, but as structures endowed with strong historical inertia. They rest on three essential and interdependent dimensions: property rights, political and civil rights, and the structure of political power.<\/p>\n

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These dimensions interact cumulatively, creating feedback mechanisms that reinforce existing configurations. Thus, when an institutional system becomes established, it tends to reproduce itself in a self-sustaining manner, which leads to a particularly strong phenomenon of path dependence.[2] It is within this framework that Xu seeks to understand the Chinese specificity.<\/p>\n

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The first historical layer analyzed by the author is that of imperial China, which constitutes, according to him, the fundamental matrix of contemporary institutions. The Chinese Empire is characterized by extreme political centralization, in which power is concentrated at the top without real institutional counterweights capable of limiting it. This centralization is accompanied by tight control over property rights, particularly land rights, which are never fully secured against state intervention.[3]<\/p>\n

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Local and economic elites thus remain dependent on central power, which prevents the emergence of an autonomous class capable of challenging political authority.<\/p>\n

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However, this ideological and political centralization is not synonymous with direct and total control over society. In reality, the imperial state has limited administrative capacities at the local level. It is in this context that informal organizations emerge, notably secret societies or triads, which play an ambivalent role. Groups such as the White Lotus Society [4] or the Tiandihui[5], often perceived as subversive forces, can also function as structures of social organization at the local level.<\/p>\n

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Sometimes repressed, sometimes tolerated, even indirectly used [6], these organizations illustrate a form of indirect governance. The imperial state thus relies, in a pragmatic way, on informal networks to relay norms, maintain order, or structure society in depth.<\/p>\n

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This point is essential in Xu\u2019s argument, because it reveals that Chinese institutions are not limited to formal arrangements. These institutions also include a set of informal practices and indirect mechanisms that allow central power to compensate for its administrative limits. This articulation between political centralization, ideological legitimation, and indirect management of society constitutes one of the fundamental \u201cinstitutional genes\u201d of China.<\/p>\n

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Another fundamental element of this imperial configuration lies in the system of bureaucratic examinations (keju) based on Confucianism. Far from being a simple moral philosophy, the latter becomes a true state ideology.<\/p>\n

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It promotes a hierarchical vision of society, based on harmony, obedience, and loyalty to authority. The emperor appears as the guarantor of moral and social order, holding a legitimacy that goes beyond mere political constraint.<\/p>\n

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These mandarin examinations allow for the formation of a homogeneous administrative elite, selected on ideological and cultural criteria favoring loyalty to the state rather than intellectual or political independence. This system thus produces a meritocratic, disciplined bureaucracy ideologically aligned with the principles of the regime in place and contributing to its reproduction.<\/p>\n

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This organization generates lasting effects: it limits the autonomy of social actors, prevents the emergence of institutional counterpowers, and establishes a tradition of state domination over society.<\/p>\n

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Unlike Europe, where political fragmentation and rivalries between powers favored the emergence of pluralist institutions, China developed a model marked, still today, by the preeminence of a political center without rival.<\/p>\n

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In parallel, the absence of an autonomous civil society, capable of organizing interests independent from the state, further limits the possibilities of institutional transformation.<\/p>\n

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To this Chinese historical base is added, according to Xu, a second set of \u201cinstitutional genes\u201d stemming from the development of modern totalitarianism in Europe, in particular through the Russian and Bolshevik experience (itself inspired by the French Revolution of 1789).<\/p>\n

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Totalitarianism, in this perspective, rests on a specific combination of universalist ideology, a centralized single party, and the will for total transformation of society.<\/p>\n

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Tsarist Russia, with its autocratic tradition and the weakness of its intermediate institutions, constitutes particularly fertile ground for the emergence of Bolshevism, which systematizes these characteristics into a coherent political model based on total control of society by a revolutionary party.<\/p>\n

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When this Soviet model is introduced into China via the Comintern, it interacts with preexisting imperial institutional structures. Xu insists that these two sets of institutional genes are highly compatible: the Chinese imperial tradition of centralization and bureaucratic control facilitates the implantation of the communist system, while the Soviet model provides the organizational and ideological instruments to intensify and modernize this form of political domination.<\/p>\n

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The result of this fusion is the formation of an original system that Xu describes as \u201cChinese totalitarianism,\u201d consolidated under Mao, in which the Party-state exercises total political and ideological control, while relying on bureaucratic mechanisms inherited from both the Empire and the Soviet model. Xu sees in the period from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping a phase of intensification of \u201ctotalitarian genes,\u201d where political and ideological control becomes omnipresent. Nevertheless, this system also reveals its limits, particularly in terms of economic efficiency.<\/p>\n

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However, this system does not reduce to rigid and uniform centralization. Xu introduces the concept of \u201cadministered and regionally decentralized totalitarianism\u201d to describe the specific configuration of post-Mao China. In this model, political power maintains strict control over elites and political orientations, while allowing local authorities a margin of experimentation and management.<\/p>\n

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This hybrid structure allows a certain economic flexibility and partly explains the growth performance of contemporary China, while maintaining intact authoritarian political control. This configuration enables the emergence of competition between regions, fostering innovation and growth, while maintaining strict political discipline. In other words, decentralization does not constitute political liberalization, but a mechanism of efficiency serving a stabilized totalitarian system.<\/p>\n

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But this stabilized totalitarian system also rests on foundations that limit its prospects for evolution. The \u201cinstitutional genes\u201d of the Chinese system make the emergence of deep political reforms difficult. The elites in place indeed have an interest in preserving the existing order, and the mechanisms of institutional reproduction thus tend to perpetuate power structures. Xu therefore adopts a relatively pessimistic position regarding the possibility of a gradual transition toward a more democratic regime, as it would require a major rupture that the Chinese leaders in power obviously do not desire, insofar as it would go against the interests of the Party and their own.<\/p>\n

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It is also true that this system partly explains the economic performance of contemporary China. Local governments are incentivized to promote the development expected by the center, since their progression within the Party hierarchy largely depends on their economic results.<\/p>\n

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At the same time, the Party ensures that no political autonomy emerges that could threaten its power. Economic liberalization is therefore not accompanied by political liberalization, contrary to what some Western theories predicted.[7]<\/p>\n

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The reforms initiated from the end of the 1970s are thus interpreted by Xu not as an institutional rupture, but as an internal adaptation of the system. The introduction of market mechanisms and economic opening did not modify the fundamental institutional genes of the regime, notably the Party\u2019s political monopoly, the absence of an independent rule of law, and the subordination of individual rights to state imperatives. Consequently, economic growth does not mechanically lead to democratic transformation, because deep institutional structures continue to shape behaviors and lock in possibilities of political evolution.<\/p>\n

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In this comparative perspective, Xu emphasizes that the Chinese trajectory does not constitute a transitional stage toward a universal liberal model, but a stable and specific configuration, whose internal logic differs profoundly from other historical experiences such as Taiwan or certain post-Soviet countries. Where some societies have been able to transform their institutions toward democracy, China remains structured by a particular combination of imperial and totalitarian genes that reinforce the resilience of the existing system.<\/p>\n

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Thus, Xu\u2019s thesis leads to a strong conclusion: the contemporary Chinese regime should not be understood as a temporary anomaly of development, but as the coherent expression of a deeply rooted institutional system, whose stability rests on historical mechanisms of reproduction. The concept of institutional genes thus makes it possible to think the continuity between imperial China, Maoist totalitarianism, and the current form of the Party-state, highlighting the historical depth and structural coherence of a political system that combines economic adaptation and political rigidity.<\/p>\n

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This perspective invites us to rethink political trajectories not as rapid and linear transformations, but as processes deeply constrained by their history. This leads Xu Chenggang to think that Chinese political institutions are structurally unreformable. If it wants to survive, the centralized Chinese communist system must change, but it cannot change itself. Therefore, it is condemned to rupture rather than reform. Unable to evolve from within, change can only occur through collapse or external shock…<\/p>\n

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[1[ Cambridge University Press, June 2025, 799 pages.<\/p>\n

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[2] Present decisions or situations strongly depend on choices made in the past. Even if these choices later lose their intensity, they continue to influence the system.<\/p>\n

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[3] Today, in China, private property is recognized for goods (housing, companies), but not for the land itself: urban land belongs to the state and rural land to collectives. Individuals in reality have usage rights (e.g. emphyteutic leases limited to 70 years for urban housing), which they can transfer or sell, bringing this system close to a regime of private property without fully being one. The state indeed retains significant control over land, notably through expropriations and the regulation of the land market.<\/p>\n

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[4] The White Lotus Society (Bailianjiao) refers to a set of Chinese popular religious movements, of Buddhist inspiration, which sometimes took on a political and contestatory dimension, notably through peasant revolts against imperial power, such as that of the White Lotus sect (1796\u20131804) under the Manchu Qing dynasty (1644\u20131911).<\/p>\n

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[5] The Tiandihui (Heaven and Earth Society), or Hongmen (vast family), is a Chinese fraternal organization and, historically, a popular secret religious society, in the lineage of the White Lotus sect, loyal to the (Han) Ming dynasty against its successor, the (Manchu) Qing dynasty. Created in the mid-18th century in Fujian province, it is among the most important of its kind. This society is at the origin of numerous Chinese mafias, with its triads present in Hong Kong and in Chinatowns around the world.<\/p>\n

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[6] While Hong Kong is shaken by a large pro-democracy movement against a bill allowing extradition to mainland China, between 100 and 200 men armed with sticks and iron bars attack protesters returning from the city center inside Yuen Long metro station, on July 21, 2019.<\/p>\n

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[7] Modernization theory (Seymour Martin Lipset), democratic transition theory (Guillermo O\u2019Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter), economic interdependence (liberalism), the capitalist bourgeoisie (Marxist\/liberal), or the post-Soviet \u201cliberal convergence\u201d (Francis Fukuyama), the \u201cWashington Consensus\u201d dominant in the 1990s\u20132000s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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*****<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A career diplomat who studied Chinese studies in France and then worked in development aid as an international expert for UNESCO in Laos (1988-1991), Jean-Rapha\u00ebl PEYTREGNET has held positions including Consul General of France in Guangzhou (2007-2011) and Beijing (2015-2018), as well as in Mumbai\/Bombay from 2011 to 2015. He was responsible for Asia at the Center for Analysis, Forecasting, and Strategy (CAPS) attached to the office of the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs (2018-2021) and finally Special Advisor to the Director for Asia-Oceania (2021-2023).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This publication reflects the views and opinions of the individual authors. As a platform dedicated to the sharing of information and ideas, our objective is to highlight a diversity of perspectives. Accordingly, the opinions expressed herein should not be interpreted as those of the Fondation France-Asie or its affiliates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article by Robin Rivaton   Xu Chenggang (born in 1957) is a Chinese political economist whose work focuses on China\u2019s transition to a market economy and the institutions of state capitalism. He taught for a long time at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and is now affiliated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7509,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7566"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7566"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7570,"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7566\/revisions\/7570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}