Asian values and the consolidation of authoritarian regimes in China-Analysis of a public opinion survey

Political culture is the key that provides the legitimacy for the maintenance of political regime, and enhancing the effectiveness of government. This study focuses on testing if the Asian values are the main factors of the consolidation of authoritarian regime. I intended to explore the following research questions as: (1) What are the Asian values? Do they exist among Chinese people? (2) Do the Asian values influence the consolidation of Chinese authoritarian regime? (3) What are the sources of the consolidation of authoritarian regime in China? Is the role of elites, political institution or political culture? In this paper, I choose China as the study case because it is the largest authoritarian regime in East Asia and the observation of regime changing during economical development. The data comes from mainly the World Values Survey and the East Asia Barometer. This study reveals that the Asian values do not the mainly factors in the consolidation of authoritarian regime. But the elites often use these values for maintaining their hegemony. The sources of consolidation of authoritarian regime also include the political factors, economic development and social groups. Moreover, the Asian values are easily to become a tool for keeping the political and social stability and the increasing the development of economics. Through observing the Asian values and the regime’s consolidation, we can understand clearly the debates between the Asian values and Chinese authoritarian regime.