Last night the Asia Society, in conjunction with the New York Review of Books, hosted a speaker series with guest speakers Ian Johnson – Beijing-based writer and foreign correspondent for theWall Street Journal – and Roderick MacFarquhar, a Professor of History and former Director of the John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University. The session was moderated by the Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York, Orville Schell.

The panel topic was, "How Stable is China: Can Its Economic Miracle Continue Under Its Current Political System?"

In the process of answering that question, three things were made very clear: no one is quite sure what China means anymore, no one is quite sure how much China is making progress, and no one is quite sure where China's power lies.

Johnson started by explaining that, "during the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, China meant wealth and prosperity. With the opening up of the world, and especially through his mandated special economic zones (SEZ's), people were able to get rich extremely quick."