Why Rapid Economic Growth in China May Be Bad for Democracy

Minxin Pei is a senior associate and director of the China Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University in 1991 and taught politics at Princeton University from 1992 to 1998. His main interest is U.S.-China relations, the development of democratic political systems, and Chinese politics. He is the author of From Reform to Revolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union (Harvard University Press, 1994) and China's Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Harvard University Press, forthcoming).

His research has been published in Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, Modern China, China Quarterly, Journal of Democracy and many edited books. His op-eds have appeared in the Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, and other major newspapers.