Abstract

ExcerptIs China governed by an authoritarian regime? The Telos–Paul Piccone Institute’s China Initiative director Eric Hendriks and Telos editor David Pan kindly gave me the opportunity to answer that question in Telos 214. The answer is “no.” The Chinese regime is not authoritarian because it does not rest on the legitimate authority of established institutions. China is governed by a totalitarian regime, which stays in power, as Mao Zedong memorably put it, “through the barrel of a gun.”