China's Political Reforms: A Net Assessment

China's leaders since the death of Mao Zedong have tried to reform the political system so as to reduce the level of political coercion, increase the use of rational/legal processes, put talented individuals into responsible positions, enhance their capacity to base decisions on pragmatic criteria, and restore and strengthen the legitimacy of the polity. Their efforts to further these goals have produced important results, but the reforms still have not taken root. The reforms have been hedged in by fundamental untouchables, resisted by uncooperative cadres, and undercut by the inherent incompatibility of different components of the reform package itself. The prognosis for the various elements of the reform effort depends both on keeping the initiative in the hands of the reformers at the top of the Communist party and on achieving good results in the economic arena.