How Xi Jinping Broke the China Dream

When China’s supreme leader Deng Xiaoping in December 1978 announced the ‘reform and opening’ of China’s economy, many expected that this would be accompanied by a gradual shift from authoritarian rule to a more liberal and democratic society. Instead, under Deng and his successors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, political reforms stagnated, and under Xi Jinping China has actually taken a step back to a much harder form of authoritarianism.