Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction The Rise of Hu Jintao and the Traits of the Fourth-Generation Leadership -- Great Expectations for the Hu Jintao Administration -- Hu's Meteoric Rise and His Power Base -- Hu's Path to Power-Skulduggery at the Sixteenth Party Congress -- The Rising Fortunes of the Communist Youth League and the "Zhu Rongji-Wen Jiabao Faction" -- Is Hu a Chinese Gorbachev or a Chinese Putin? -- 2 The Crisis of Legitimacy Hu Jintao's Search for a Perennial Mandate of Heaven -- New Ideas to Safeguard the CCP's "Perennial Ruling Party" Status -- The Lure of the New -- The Search for a Perennial Mandate of Heaven -- An Efficient, "Scientific," and Law-Abiding Administration with Limited Democracy -- Seeking Regional Equality of Development -- Efforts Toward Building a China-Dominated Twenty-first Century -- A Preliminiary Assessment of the Hu-Wen Team's New Ideas -- 3 The Communist Party vs. Peasants and Workers Will Hu Jintao's "New Social Contract" Work? -- Reaffirming the Mass Line and Restoring Human Dignity -- Hu Jintao's Reinterpreation of the "Theory of the Three Represents" -- The Hu-Wen Team's Populism: Rehoisting the Mass Line -- Test Case: A New Deal for Peasants? -- Test Case: The Plight of Workers -- The Plight of Other Disadvantaged Sectors -- A Checkered Report Card on the "Putting People First" Crusade -- 4 The Scourge of Governmental Stagnation The Price of Holding Up Political Reform -- Real Political Reform Put on Hold -- The Hu-Wen Team's Limited Vision About Liberalization -- No "Western-style" Liberalization: A Moratorium on Universal-Suffrage Elections -- Hu-style "Political Civilization": Rule by Law and Checks and Balances -- The Significance of "Intra-Party Democracy" -- Administrative Reform Under One-Party Rule: Boosting Efficiency and Elitism.

Boosting Administrative Probity and Fighting Corruption -- 5 The Fourth-Generation Leadership's Ambitious Foreign-Policy Agenda -- Diplomatic Challenges for the Twenty-first Century -- The Hu-Wen Team's New Approach to Foreign Policy -- "Energy Diplomacy"-The Search for Reliable Supplies of Oil and Gas -- China-U.S. Relations -- China-EU Relations -- China-Japan Relations -- China-ASEAN Relations -- Conclusion: In Search of a New World Order with Chinese Characteristics -- 6 The Challenge of Nationalism, and Other Ideas and Trends for the New Century -- Winds of Change in the Twenty-first Century -- Nationalism vs. Globalization and Federalism -- The Challenge of the New Media -- Political Impact of the "New Classes" -- The Political Role of the Middle Class, the Intelligentsia, and the Civil Society -- 7 Conclusion Where Is the New Thinking? -- China at a Crossroads -- Hu's Obsession with Holding Power vs. the Seeds of Real Reform -- Growing Doubts About the "China Model" -- A Half-Baked Strategy for Reform and Liberalization -- Economic Policy: Battling Residual Obstacles to Full Liberalization -- The Dearth of "Soft Power," New Thinking, and New Ideas -- Waiting for the Fifth Generation -- Notes -- Preface -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7 -- Index.