The Perfect Dictatorship: China in the 21st Century

by Stein Ringen

I have rejected the label of ‘authoritarian’ for the Chinese state. It is too accommodating. A state that demands obedience and controls to the extent the Chinese one does, that rules by fear and the force of armed power, that sends the police out at night to break down front doors and haul people away, and that in the last instance relies on violence, and on the demonstrable willingness to use violence when it sees that to be necessary or opportune, is not just an authoritarian state. It is a dictatorship. But I have also said that ‘dictatorship’ is not an adequate label. It is too unsophisticated. China is now a dictatorship in which dictate is restrained and in which, except in the last resort, indirect control is substituted for direct command. This mode of control, hard in effect but soft in execution, is being developed to perfection and makes the Chinese state a kind of dictatorship never seen before. That kind of dictatorship needs a name. It is not an autocracy; that is too benevolent. It is not a dictatorship like others; that is too primitive. I give it the name of controlocracy.