Can China enjoy a second change of leadership without crisis?  Will one-party rule become an impediment to the country's future modernization and prosperity?  What are the obstacles standing in the way of political and further economic reform?  How should we interpret the recent political upheavals? 

Join us to hear from some of China’s leading experts on this topic.

Ian Johnson is a Beijing-based writer who specializes in civil society, culture and religion. For 13 years, Johnson worked at The Wall Street Journal, where he was a page-one feature writer and bureau chief and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on China.

Roderick MacFarquhar is the Leroy B. Williams Professor of History and Political Science at Harvard University and formerly Director of the John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Research. He has published widely on the Cultural Revolution and his most recent book is Mao's Last Revolution.

Moderated by Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations, Asia Society, and author of many books and articles on Chinese affairs.

Introduced by Hugh Eakin, Senior Editor, The New York Review of Books, who edited the the recent book, Liu Xiaobo's Empty Chair (NYRB 2011), a collection of reports and documents by Perry Link and others about the crackdown on Chinese Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo.

This event marks and celebrates a new partnership between the Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations and The New York Review of Books. It will be the first of a series of joint events involving some of the distinguished writers who have contributed to The New York Review of Books' China coverage over the years.

This event is co-sponsored by

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