The mentality of China�s rigidly bureaucratic infrastructure and that of the Communist Party has traditionally viewed back-door connections to powerful government employees as genuine avenues for economic advancement and individual contractual obligations as a mere facade. In order for genuine economic modernization to occur in China, the country will need to be transitioned from a whim-based mindset of officialism to a law-based, objective, Western mindset of rationalism.
* The transition to a true market economy can take place only once China finalizes its dismantlement of protectionism for uncompetitive domestic firms. This, however, has angered and will continue to anger hard-liners within the party who possess vested interests in these industries. The opening of China to a global economy will displace these entrenched oligopolists and create a period of immense social mobility and a merit-based economic structure where the most productive individuals will assume the top positions.
The Menace of Corruption:
* A paralyzing hindrance to economic development is one with which the CCP is already teeming, corruption. Nicholas Hope, former director of the World Bank�s China and Mongolia department, likens it to a �cancer.� Corruption has plagued the party since its inception, and is inherent in such a severely bureaucratic structure. It may be that as the economy progresses more people will realize that the party in its present state is an obstruction to development and hence discard it or gradually drift away from it.
A "Special Interest Group?":
* Masaharu Hishida believes that the Communist Party, as it becomes more inclusive in its admissions, will cease to be a vehicle of state-imposed ideology so much as it will become a network of associative potential and an �interest group� with immense sociopolitical leverage. Nevertheless, it will also lose the monolithic homogeneity that had enabled it in the past to ruthlessly �resolve� conflicting interests, and this will somewhat hinder its capacity to act as a united force. More likely, it will gradually be transformed into a multitude of enclaves vying for control of critical positions and waging special interest wars for their own petty favors. If the party endures, such will be the residue of China�s �officialist� mentality which institutionalizes this manner of intrigue.