| Summary/Abstract |
Xi Jinping has never liked the popular Western phrase, ‘the rise of China’. He prefers China’s ‘restoration’ (fuxing) – describing an arc of recovery after the century-long free fall following the Opium Wars. Despite Xi’s ambitious project of cultural restoration, however, the People’s Republic of China is facing its most serious legitimacy crisis since its founding in 1949. At first glance this seems counter-intuitive, given that the Chinese Communist Party has pulled off one of the greatest achievements in world economic history. Yet political order based on the one-party system is under strain.
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