Liberal China

The Latin Americanization of China? (pdf), by George Gilboy and Eric Heginbotham:

China’s tumultuous reform process could see the creation of new, more liberal legal and social institutions. Transforming migrants into urban citizens with equal rights and allowing social groups to organize and articulate their own interests would both improve the ability of the government to govern effectively and minimize longterm threats to stability and economic development.

But other outcomes are also possible. The state could refuse to allow liberal institutional innovation and slip into a modern form of authoritarian corporatism in which political leaders might seek to channel social energies toward nationalist ends— the “revolution from above” about which Barrington Moore warned. Or alternatively, China could catch the Latin American disease, characterized by a polarized urban society, intensifying urban conflict, and failed economic promise. Indeed, despite aggressive efforts to make the state more responsive and adaptive, the speed with which social cleavages and conflicts are growing today arguably makes this last outcome easier to imagine than the others.

But they go on to be fairly optimistic that China will set up "liberal" institutions.

Update
I meant to mention that the article also mentions that "你真农民" (You're really "peasant" is an insult). This would appear to be the case.