CAN'T HAVE A CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS WHEN THERE IS ONLY ONE:

In Democracy in China: The Coming Crisis, Jiwei Ci, a philosophy professor at the University of Hong Kong, makes an elaborate but cogent argument about how the party will only overcome its illegitimacy, along with other tears in the national fabric, by choosing to usher in political democracy, a change that Ci declares is "of dire necessity rather than moral luxury".

Unlike those who predicate China's embrace of democracy on the fall of the party, Ci envisions that as the party continues to confront crises involving its legitimacy and strains to "perform well" for its population, top leaders will wisely seek out a parachute to stave off the party's annihilation. The party would still be indispensable, its eventual sharing of power and influence being essential not only to its own survival but to the health of Chinese society.

Ci argues that China, largely due to advances made since the early 1990s, is already democratic in the sense that society possesses "equality of conditions". That term, taken from Alexis de Tocqueville, entails a "basic human sameness ... captured in such notions as universal human rights, careers open to talents, and equality of opportunity".

Again borrowing from de Tocqueville, Ci notes how democracy is a social condition - part of a society's "nature and dynamic" - more than a political phenomenon or "regime type".

As Ci puts it: "The question is not whether China will be ready for democracy, as if democracy were something totally new and alien, but whether China will be able to complete a process that is already well under way - a comprehensive transformation for which only the last, political steps are yet to be taken."

Ci does not think China is near the brink of transitioning to political democracy. But he figures that within the next 10 to 20 years - depending on when President Xi Jinping leaves the stage - the party will face an unprecedented crisis of political authority and legitimacy, unable to draw on the two main factors that have allowed the one-party apparatus to largely resist challenge: its communist revolutionary past and its capacity to help boost the "quality of life" of Chinese people.

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