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Anti-system Contentions and Authoritarian Response in China: Evolution and Mechanisms

This paper proposes a new framework to analyze social contentions in China from the perspectives of contention motives and mobilization channels, explains why traditional forms of contention do not undermine the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rule, and identifies anti-system contention as a distinctive form of contention that poses the greatest challenge to the CCP’s rule. Through analysis of political opportunity structures and mobilization mechanisms that allowed anti-system contentions to rise, this paper argues that since such contentions mainly consist of value-oriented social actors mobilized via informal channels, it would require the Chinese regime to adapt to a more targeted and coordinated model of repression to address the new challenges. The paper further provides empirical case studies to show the effectiveness of the regime’s adaptive repression and shows that anti-system contentions in China face their own hurdle to develop into more prominent contentions.