The End of the Revolution: China and the Limits of Modernity
Wang Hui coverWhen the Association for Asian Studies meets in
Philadelphia later this week, one of the keynote speakers will
be Tsinghua University professor and noted public intellectual
Wang Hui, whose talk on Saturday evening is free and open to the
public. A former editor of Dushu (“Reading”), Wang’s writings
include China’s New Order: Society, Politics, and Economy in
Transition (Harvard, 2003), as well as a recently released
collection of essays, The End of the Revolution: China and the
Limits of Modernity (Verso, 2009). Here, we are pleased to share
with China Beat readers an excerpt from the English edition
introduction of The End of the Revolution.  The paradox of the
statiﬁcation of the party  Discussions of the state are directly
related to questions about the formation of democratic
mechanisms. There is one basic paradox one must face, which is
that, on the one hand, China’s ability to govern effectively has
been widely acknowledged in