From Prospect Magazine:
If China does not abandon one-party rule, will it stumble under the stresses of state capitalism? Or will it show that there can be a successful authoritarian road to modernity?
Hutton to Desai (29th November 2006)
It is a commonplace to observe that the rise of China is transforming the world. Extrapolate from current growth rates and China will be the world’s largest economy by the middle of this century, if not before. If it remains communist, the impact on the world system will be enormous and very damaging. Britain and the US are, for all their faults, democracies that accept the rule of law. This is not true of China. If an unreformed China takes its place at the top table, the global order will be kinder to despotism; the fragile emergence of an international system of governance based on the rule of law will be set back and the relations between states will depend even more nakedly on their relative power. [more]
Desai to Huntton (1st December 2006)
For a liberal pluralist, you sound oddly like a monist, if not a monotheist. For you, there is only one road to capitalism”the western one”and only one political system”ours. [more]
