Decades ago, Western political scientists began asking a question that has never been fully resolved but has also never seemed more urgent. They noted that since World War II, extremely few countries had joined the ranks of the globe’s truly wealthy nations and almost all that had were already democracies or were in the midst of political transitions that would lead to systems that gave citizens a choice in the selection of leaders.
So, they wondered: Could China, the world’s most-populous country – and, since the Soviet Union’s demise, the most powerful and, in aggregate terms, richest authoritarian society – buck the trend?
