Could, as Bao suggests, a more ancient Chinese identity still be a living force among the people despite Mao’s systematic destruction of traditional Chinese society over several decades? One irony of China’s ascendance is that achieving Mao’s vision of a rising China depended upon the Party’s abandoning a number of Mao’s convictions—Communism, worldwide revolution, self-sufficiency. But not the most important one: The Chinese Communist Party must rule and is the sole arbiter of Chinese identity.
