I am very happy to have the opportunity to revisit my ideas about Chinese governance, and to offer some speculations about its future. I have written on this subject in my two most recent books, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution , and Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy.  These books have been widely read in China and have attracted a good deal of comment; they have also produced considerable misunderstanding so I think it is important to clarify some of my judgments about the nature and the future of Chinese government. I will therefore summarize the conceptual framework I have tried to establish, describe how contemporary China fits into it, and then go on to discuss some possible futures for the Chinese political system.