A New Book Praises China’s Governance Model, But Overlooks Its Politics

A Review of Daniel A. Bell’s “The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy”

On August 12, China once again met with man-made tragedy. Massive explosions at a chemical storage warehouse in Tianjin took the lives of 173 people and injured nearly 700, some of them seriously. The owner of the warehouse that blew up, Rui Hai International Logistics, immediately came under intense scrutiny: how could the company allow such a thing to happen?