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The rise of China as a global power has attracted the attention of more and more scholars. With its Western-style economic reform and the consequent rapid economic growth, will China change into a liberal-democratic country? Why does the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the world's largest political party, continue to maintain its rule without substantial political reform? What constitutes the base of the CCP's ruling legitimacy? These questions confuse many who have anxiously anticipated the advent of democratization in China. Professor Baogang Guo's book on China's political legitimacy addresses these issues from a new perspective. Guo argues that the key political issue for the CCP today is not the pursuit of Western democracy, but the continuous "search for political legitimacyâ[euro] (p. 184), following the Chinese tradition.
Building on existing legitimacy theories, Guo develops two important concepts: the "original justificationâ[euro] for "rulers' right to governâ[euro] rests upon people's "tacit moral supportâ[euro] and the "utilitarian justificationâ[euro] is largely related to people's "well-beingâ[euro] (p. 7). Meanwhile, unlike other scholars who ignore the influence of tradition on contemporary Chinese politics, Guo makes efforts to connect his concepts with the Chinese cultural tradition. He uses them to explain the...