Thunder in the East

The regime that was supposed to own the century may not survive the decade.

The People’s Republic of China is now trapped in slow-burning economic and financial crises. These difficulties are contributing to troubling changes in the country’s politics, and those political changes are affecting external policies, pushing the Chinese state in a far more provocative direction. These trends are making an insecure Communist Party of China more repressive at home.

Not long ago, there was a more hopeful outlook. Everyone then said China had passed from its first broad historical era, one dominated by founder Mao Zedong, to the second period, one begun by his successor, Deng Xiaoping. As Deng consolidated control, China passed from Maoism to an era of “reform and opening up.”

Now, however, China is regressing and closing down. Change, driven primarily by economics and politics, has been so fundamental and transformative that the country has passed into a...