AP Photo

As April passed into May this year, one electrifying story replaced another in the consciousness of the Chinese public. The first involved a ruthless official struggling for control of the ruling Communist Party and the second a solitary activist who, without this being his stated intention, challenged the one-party state from below. Soon, the two narratives began to merge, posing a threat of the first order to China’s increasingly fragile political system. During the night of April 22nd, Chen Guangcheng, a blind human rights advocate, climbed over walls and made his way through a heavy security cordon that had, for nineteen months, illegally ringed his home, where he had been confined, beaten, and denied medical treatment. In the following days, he traveled almost four hundred...