Totalitarianism is a political system that controls the public and private spheres of society, and prohibits opposition political parties. It's also characterized by strong central rule that uses coercion and repression to control all aspects of individual life. Totalitarian states typically pursue a special goal at the exclusion of all others, and direct all resources toward its attainment. According to Salvatore Babones, an adjunct scholar at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, China is governed by a totalitarian regime. Some characteristics of a totalitarian regime include: Tracking citizens' online communications Tracking citizens physically using facial recognition technologies Controlling all mass media and most social media Imprisoning large sections of the population in concentration camps According to Franz Schurmann, in his 1968 book Ideology and Organization in Communist China, under Mao, the Party-state established an omnipresent organizational network enveloping and penetrating China society. However, the Chinese constitution describes China's system of government as a people's democratic dictatorship. The CCP has also used other terms to officially describe China's system of government including "socialist consultative democracy", and whole-process people's democracy. According to Lee Edwards, a leading historian of American conservatism, the Chinese Communist Party is increasingly dominated by one man, Xi Jinping. Edwards says that Xi's power is stronger than any leader since Mao. 许成钢讲座：中共政权的制度基因 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-c8F-BZmJDy0.html In this talk, Professor Chenggang Xu characterises the contemporary fundamental institution of China as Regionally Decentralized Totalitarianism (RDT). This system has its roots in the imported Soviet communist totalitarian system and the Chinese imperial system, as well as its evolution since the inception of the People's Republic of China (PRC) era. To analyse China's institutional evolution more comprehensively, Professor Xu introduces an analytical concept, "institutional genes." These are self-reproducing basic structures of key institutional elements such as power structures, resource allocation mechanisms, and prevailing social beliefs. His goal is to explain why China's institutions have evolved in the way that we have observed, and to predict how they will continue to evolve in the future.
