Although the Party’s carrot-and-stick approach has worked since 1989, it is doubtful that it will retain its efficacy for another 17 years. To the extent that China’s authoritarian regime is by nature exclusionary (it can only incorporate a limited number of elites), the co-optation strategy will soon run up against its limits, and the Party will no longer have the resources to buy off the intelligentsia or keep private entrepreneurs happy.