From the Archive

Trying out loungers at Beijing’s IKEA, 2004

“At first glance, this group may not look so impressive with its collective rear end sinking into the cushions. However, according to political scientists as well as some of my own (middle class) Chinese friends, these are the people who will quite likely determine the future of the country’s political system, and thus, the direction of China as a whole. The basic idea here is that an increasingly wealthy middle class focused on safeguarding its property will be more likely than any other force to push for democratic and legal reforms; you need a bourgeois class before you can have a bourgeois ‘revolution’.” [read newsletter]

—Alexander Brenner

China

ICWA Fellow (2003-2005)