A Tight Grip

Investigates the distribution of power in China and its effect on society.

A non-democratic regime must solve two problems in order to survive: how to share power with the political elite and how to control society. A Tight Grip examines the strategies that China’s current, and longest-serving, head of state has used to address these questions and bolster his leadership of the world’s second-most populous country.

Wen-Hsuan Tsai explores the president’s method of concentrating decision-making power in his own hands through political dominance and ideological control while still creating scope for local-level political advancement. As a result, he has expanded the reach of social control while reducing its cost to the regime.

A Tight Grip is an in-depth exploration of the president’s innovative use of specific institutional and policy instruments to develop a restricted power-sharing model and maintain social order. This clear-eyed assessment reveals not only the pros and cons of particular regulations but also their implications for China’s political development.

Wen-Hsuan Tsai is a research fellow at the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica in Taiwan and a jointly appointed professor at the Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies at National Chengchi University.