Studying the nature of Chinese politics has taken its authors many years to compile facts and analyze events that have taken place in the vast country since the 1940s with the accession to power of Mao Tsetung and the communist party. From Mao to Deng Ziaoping to Jiang Zemin, the evolution of Chinese politics has become clearer as China is becoming an economic power and its elite is more educated and open to Western concepts of free markets and the changes that come with globalization. But one aspect of Chinese politics that has not really changed is the dominance of factionalism, the patron-client ties, connections (guanxi), the informal and formal ways of managing the country and the relationship between civilian and military leaders. The authors argue that there is an inescapable evolution in the nature of Chinese politics, like in any other system of governance, but the core of that politics has remained consistently the same from one generation to another.

Lucian W. Pie says that in today's China, "there is neither a legal nor a moral order that has been adequately internalized so as to govern the behavior of officials." He says in traditional China, the Confucian moral order can be considered the functional equivalent of the legal systems in the West. Under Mao, communist ideology plays an important role but personal ties remain strong as the Communist Party maintains its power and structure.

Tang Tsou, an eminent professor of political science at the University of Chicago, believes that Chinese history is so complex that theories, models and general propositions made by Western scholars about Chinese politics must be tested before they can be fully understood. The book edited by Unger allows its authors to analyze the writings of other experts. Tsou discusses concepts put forward by Andrew J. Nathan, a respected Columbia University professor of political science, on factionalism in Chinese politics. For Nathan, a faction in China consists of a one-to-one relationship rather than a relationship between leaders and followers like in a corporation. Tsou says Nathan's ideas of factions are "simple and elegant," but they must be confronted with Chinese reality. Tsou says Nathan's factions fit certain periods in China, like during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s rather than in the period right after the communist takeover of the mainland after 1949. He says the "Gang of Four" and the Lin Bao's faction "came as close as possible in real life during this period to Nathan's factions."

In his writing about the Chinese politics at the top, Tsou goes through several periods in the life of China after 1949, in some cases using analyzes of other analysts to push for his own concepts of Chinese politics.

Tsou says, "The leader holding the highest formal authority must have unchallenged informal power to retain these positions and to emerge as the 'core'. " He says when the core combines both the formal and informal power and authority, there is no way to remove a leader even though he has committed grave mistakes, as in the case of Mao when he tried to carry out disastrous programs of reforms that resulted in countless deaths and miseries for the Chinese people.

Michel Oksenberg writes in the chapter on the challenges facing the Chinese political system in the 21st century that Chinese leaders will have to improve their institutions if they want to move forward by crossing the river stone by stone, using one favorite Chinese proverb. They have done so in the economic sphere and will have to do the same in the area of politics. Oksenberg warns that authoritarian regimes that have tried to postpone the challenge of political reform have met with disastrous consequences, citing the example of the Soviet Union. Lucian W. Pie provides interesting details about Jiang Zemin's presidency, during which the central power has declined with the emergence of younger generations more inclined in carrying out pragmatic programs of reforms to bring the country closer to the world's economy. He refers to the description of Jiang as a "flowerpot." But Pie says there is a marked difference between Jiang in public and in private.

For Lowell Dittmer, there are repeated patterns in Chinese politics and the behavior of the elite power.

"One is that, now and perhaps for the foreseeable future, it is still men and not laws or ideas that govern China, and that their interpersonal behavior tends to follow certain general rules," Dittmer says. Other authors in the book give interesting analyzes that can educate readers wanting to know more than about politics and leaders in China.