This article offers a critical perspective on the field of Chinese politics in the United States. Arguing that China is markedly different from the countries against which it is commonly compared-i.e., other Communist and post-Communist societies as well as other East Asian societies, Perry calls instead for a "sober assessment of the techniques of rule perfected by the Chinese Communist state." China's long revolutionary experience, she suggests, has bequeathed to today's leaders remarkably effective methods of "controlled polarization" that serve to divide and rule the society at large. This legacy of "revolutionary authoritarianism," she proposes, accounts for the regime's capacity to maintain order in the face of extraordinarily unsettling economic and social change.