> policy experts assumed China would become more liberal
No one actually thinks that, it's just the line they use to justify themselves to the public. Like how Saudi Arabia has been promising amazing "reforms" for the better part of a decade.
No one actually thinks that, it's just the line they use to justify themselves to the public. Like how Saudi Arabia has been promising amazing "reforms" for the better part of a decade.
We had just done it to Russia successfully (short-term). Why not China?
There's a reason both the USSR and China started doing reforms in the 80s: neither system was working well, leading to stagnation at best and outright absurdities and poverty at worst. In both cases, the economic reforms mostly worked out well.
There are a bunch of differences between Russia and China: China never seriously attempted to introduce democracy and has had a fairly stable political system since the late 70s, whereas in Russia the entire communist political system collapsed and was replaced (which is always tricky business). China also never experienced a breakup similar to the breakup of the USSR, didn't have "let's sell off all state properties to my friends for peanuts" kind of corruption, had quite a different make-up (before the reforms most of China was rural and profoundly poor), and probably a few other differences.
What isn't going to happen is the leadership suddenly deciding they love democracy and giving up power.
Usually that's the biggest problem worldwide, the old hold on to old ways to their deaths and prevent any kind of change. And this is a newer phenomena in human history because modern medicine has extended lifespans far beyond the days of old.