Book Review: Sexuality and the Rise of China: The Post-1990s Gay Generation in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China by Travis S. K. Kong

Abstract

relaxation in repression correlated with improved information gathering. Perceived enemies of the state declined by as many as nine times, with informants reduced on average to one-third of the 1955 contingent (p. 93). But as the final chapter points out, the system of the information state can never guarantee perpetual single-party rule, even with the application of the most advanced tools of artificial intelligence. Here is where the example of the Eastern European transition beginning in 1989 may be relevant to China’s future. Thinking with the long term in mind, might Tiananmen of the same year have been a harbinger? The question (p. 445) refers to the above-mentioned CCP ‘survival formula’. The communist parties of Bulgaria, USSR/Russia, GDR/Germany, and so on ‘survived’ the largely peaceful democratization (after undergoing reform) to become participants in new parliamentary systems. The author’s conclusion implies the possibility, in a future post-Xi Jinping government, of improved voluntary transmission of information tied to broader responsiveness. As remote as this scenario might seem today, the possible emergence of a stable reform-oriented regime cannot be categorically excluded based on the historical evidence presented in this study.