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"Rising prosperity was supposed to bring democracy to China, yet the Communist Party's political monopoly endures. How? Minxin Pei looks to the surveillance state. Though renowned for high-tech repression, the Chinese surveillance state is also a hugely labor-intensive project. Pei delves into the human sources of coercion at the heart of CCP power."--

Countering recent hype around technology, a leading expert argues that the endurance of dictatorship in China owes less to facial recognition AI and GPS tracking than to the human resources of the Leninist surveillance state.For decades China watchers argued that economic liberalization and increasing prosperity would bring democracy to the world's most populous country. Instead, the Communist Party's grip on power has only strengthened. Why? The answer, Minxin Pei argues, lies in the effectiveness of the Chinese surveillance state. And the source of that effectiveness is not just advanced technology like facial recognition AI and mobile phone tracking. These are important, but what matters more is China's vast, labor-intensive infrastructure of domestic spying.Central government data on Chinese surveillance is confidential, so Pei turned to local reports, police gazettes, leaked documents, and interviews with exiled dissidents to provide a detailed look at the evolution, organization, and tactics of the surveillance state. Following the 1989 Tiananmen uprising, the Chinese Communist Party invested immense resources in a coercive apparatus operated by a relatively small number of secret police officers capable of mobilizing millions of citizen informants to spy on those suspected of disloyalty. The CCP's Leninist bureaucratic structure—whereby officials and party activists penetrate every sector of society and the economy, from universities and village committees to delivery companies, telecommunication firms, and Tibetan monasteries—ensures that Beijing's eyes and ears are truly everywhere.While today's system is far more robust than that of years past, it is modeled after mass surveillance implemented under Mao Zedong and Chinese emperors centuries ago. Rigorously empirical and rich in historical insight, The Sentinel State is a singular contribution to our knowledge about coercion in the Chinese state and, more generally, the survival strategies of authoritarian regimes

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Regime Transition in Communist States -- 2. Explaining the Tocqueville Paradox -- 3. China's Capitalist Revolution -- 4. The Private Sector under Perestroika -- 5. The Self-Liberalization of China's Mass Media -- 6. The Liberal Takeover of the Soviet Mass Media under Glasnost -- Conclusion -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. The Origins of Crony Capitalism: How Institutional Changes Incentivize Corruption -- 2. The Soil of Crony Capitalism: Where Corruption Thrives -- 3. Public Offices for Sale: An Illicit Market for Political Power -- 4. Cronyism in Action: Collusion between Officials and Businessmen -- 5. Stealing from the State: Collusive Corruption in State- Owned Enterprises -- 6. In Bed with the Mafia: Collusion between Law Enforcement and Organized Crime -- 7. The Spread of Collusion: The Party- State in Decay -- Conclusion -- Appendix -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index

"When Deng Xiaoping launched his economic reforms in the late 1970s, he vowed to build "socialism with Chinese characteristics." Three and half decades later, behind its rapid growth and glitzy façade, modernization under one-party rule has spawned a form of rapacious crony capitalism characterized by endemic corruption, an incipient kleptocracy, record income inequality, and high social tensions. This book traces the origin of China's crony capitalism to a set of incomplete reforms of property rights in the post-Tiananmen era that have decentralized the control of public property without clarifying its ownership. This combination has created an ideal environment for political and economic elites to collude and amass private wealth through systematic theft of nominally state-owned property, in particular land, natural resources, and state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Based on illuminating details from 260 well-researched cases of corruption involved multiple officials and businessmen since the early 1990s, this study investigates how collusion among elites has penetrated the vital sectors of the Chinese political and economic systems. These cases reveal a well-developed illicit market for power inside the Chinese party-state, in which bribes and official appointments are surreptitiously but routinely traded. They also document the widespread theft inside Chinese SOEs and collusion between law enforcement officials and organized crime. Above all, through its in-depth analysis of the exchange of money for favors between government officials and private businessmen, the study shines a spotlight on the dark world of crony capitalism in China - and a Leninist regime in late-stage decay."--

Intro -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- One: Why Transitions get Trapped: A Theoretical Framework -- Two: Democratizing China? -- Three: Rent Protection and Dissipation: The Dark Side of Gradualism -- Four: Transforming the State: From Developmental to Predatory -- Five: China's Mounting Governance Deficits -- Conclusion -- Appendix: Reported Cases of Local Mafia States -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index.