may even be the most likely scenario for many nations, ranging from Cambodia and Vietnam to Burundi, Ethiopia, and Rwanda. But it also implies that like all examples of growth under extractive political institutions, it will not be sustained. In the case of China, the growth process based on catchup, import of foreign technology, and export of low-end manufacturing products is likely to continue for a while. Nevertheless, Chinese growth is also likely to come to an end, particularly once China reaches the standards of living level of a middle-income country. The most likely scenario may be for the Chinese Communist Party and the increasingly powerful Chinese economic elite to manage to maintain their very tight grip on power in the next several decades. In this case, history and our theory suggest that growth with creative destruction and true innovation will not arrive, and the spectacular growth rates in China will slowly evaporate. But this outcome is far from preordained; it can be avoided if China transitions to inclusive political institutions before its growth under extractive institutions reaches its limit. Nevertheless there is little reason to expect that a transition in China toward more inclusive political institutions is likely or that it will take place automatically and painlessly.Even some voices within the Chinese Communist Party are recognizing the dangers on the road ahead and are throwing around the idea that political reformthat is, a transition to more inclusive political institutions, to use our terminologyis necessary. The powerful premier Wen Jiabao has recently warned of the danger that economic growth will be hampered unless political reform gets under way. We think Wens analysis is prescient, even if some people doubt his sincerity. But many in the West do not agree with Wens pronouncements. To them, China reveals an alternative path to sustained economic growth, one under authoritarianism rather than inclusive economic and political institutions. But they are wrong. We have already seen the important salient roots of Chinese success: a radical change in economic institutions away from rigidly communist ones and toward institutions that provide incentives to increase productivity and to trade. Looked at from this perspective, there is nothing fundamentally different about Chinas experience relative to that of countries that have managed to take steps away from extractive and toward inclusive economic institutions, even when this takes place under extractive political institutions, as in the Chinese case. China has thus achieved economic growth not thanks to its extractive political institutions, but despite them: its successful growth experience over the last three decades is due to a radical shift away from extractive economic institutions and toward significantly more inclusive economic institutions, which was made more difficult, not easier, by the presence of highly authoritarian, extractive political institutions.A DIFFERENT TYPE of endorsement of authoritarian growth recognizes its unattractive nature but claims that authoritarianism is just a passing stage. This idea goes back to one of the classical theories of political sociology, the theory of modernization, formulated by Seymour Martin Lipset. Modernization theory maintains that all societies, as they grow, are headed toward a more