Reading 2       China's post-Cold War leaders, having compulsively studied the Soviet example,sought to avoid repeating it by transforming Marxism into consumer capitalismwithout at the same time allowing democracy. They thereby flipped what they saw asSoviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's greatest error: permitting democracy withoutensuring prosperity. This latest "rectification of names" - the ancient Chineseprocedure of conforming names to shifting realities - seemed until recently to havesucceeded. The Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping's post-Mao pro-market reformssolidified support for the regime and made China a model for much of the rest of theworld. Xi, on taking power, was widely expected to continue along that path.       But he hasn't. Instead, Xi is cutting off access to the outside world, defyinginternational legal norms, and encouraging "Wolf Warrior" diplomacy, none of whichseems calculated to win or retain allies. At home, he is enforcing orthodoxy,whitewashing history, and oppressing minorities in ways defunct Russian and Chineseemperors might have applauded. Most significant, he has sought to secure thesereversals by abolishing his own term limits.      Hence our second unknown: Why is Xi undoing the reforms, while abandoningthe diplomatic subtlety, that allowed China's rise in the first place? Perhaps he fearsthe risks of his own retirement, even though these mount with each rival he imprisonsor purges. Perhaps he has realized that innovation requires but may also inspirespontaneity within his country. Perhaps he worries that increasingly hostileinternational rivals won't allow him unlimited time to achieve his aims. Perhaps hesees the prevailing concept of world order itself as at odds with a mandate fromHeaven, Marx, or Mao.        Or it could be that Xi envisions a world order with authoritarianism at its coreand with China at its center. Technology, he may expect, will make humnanconsciousness as transparent as satellites made the earth's surface during the ColdWar. China, he may assume, will never alienate its foreign friends. Expectationswithin China, he may suppose, will never find reasons not to rise. And Xi, as he ages,will gain in the wisdom, energy, and attentiveness to detail that only he, as supremeleader, can trust himself to provide.      But if Xi really believes all of this, then he's already losing sight of the gapsbetween promises and performance that have long been Catch-22s for authoritarianregimes. For if, like Gorbachev's predecessors did, you ignore such fissures, they'llonly worsen. But if, like Gorbachev himself, you acknowledge them, you'llundermine the claim to infallibility on which legitimacy in an autocracy must restThat is why graceful exits by authoritarians have been so rare.
【題組】27. What did China's post-Cold War leaders learn from the Soviet political history?
(A) They learned to compulsively digest knowledge of democracy.
(B) They appreciated the beauty of Western democracy.
(C) They pledged to the code of honor.
(D) They allowed the development of capitalism within the confine ofauthoritarian regimes.
(E) They aimed to build an open society.