President Xi Jinping, 2014. Demotix/Gregor Fischer. All rights reserved.In a new and important book, an eminent political scientist argues the case that the Chinese system is not only unique but also a morally justifiable alternative to democracy. He calls it a ‘political meritocracy’ and suggests that recent experience shows meritocracy to have so much promise and democracy so much difficulty that the balance is shifting in favour of meritocracy.
The experience in question is ‘the crisis of governance in Western democracy’ and ‘the success of meritocracy in China.’
The book is The China Model (Princeton University Press). Its author is Daniel A. Bell, a Canadian political scientist who for about ten years has been teaching at one of China’s élite universities, Tsinghua in Beijing, and who has become known as an original thinker about today’s China.
