My Take | Predicting decline of Communist Party earns China scholar a scolding

When China's state-owned media runs not one but two vitriolic op-eds against a foreign scholar, you can be sure the person has touched a raw nerve.

Veteran China watcher David Shambaugh dropped a bombshell recently in the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal by predicting that the endgame of communist rule has begun and it is progressing faster than most outside experts think.

Coming from Shambaugh, that is a real shocker, for the professor at George Washington University is no China basher, at least not up till now.

He is one of those preternaturally cautious scholars who prefer fact-based conditionals over sensational claims. In Charting China's Future, a collection of essays by China experts edited by Shambaugh, he deliberately sets himself apart from both the "China-is-doomed" crowd as well as those who think it is ready to take over the world.

In January, he was hailed by Foreign Affairs University on the mainland as one of America's top China scholars. It must be regretting its choice now. Global Times and China Daily have gone into an apoplectic fit. But what has changed? I gather he is alarmed by President Xi Jinping's iron-fist rule and what that signifies.

"Xi's wave of repression today is meant to be the opposite of Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost," he wrote. "Instead of opening up, Xi is doubling down on controls over dissenters, the economy and even rivals within the party."