China’s post-reform regime rests on performance and nationalist legitimacy, not ideology

Evidence

Total Westernization was no more practical at the end of the twentieth century than it had been at the end of the nineteenth century. The leadership instead chose a new version of Ti-Yong: capitalism and involvement in the world economy, on the one hand, combined with political authoritarianism and recommitment to traditional Chinese culture, on the other. In place of the revolutionary legitimacy of Marxist-Leninism, the regime substituted performance legitimacy provided by surging economic development and nationalist legitimacy provided by invocation of the distinctive characteristics of Chinese culture. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 287

Categorization

• DEFINE: Ti-Yong (Chinese learning as essence, Western learning for practical use) is given a modern postwar gloss here worth pinning down.
• XREF: Links to discussions of nationalism as a substitute for failed ideology elsewhere in the book and to legitimacy theory.