In The Gilded Cage: Technology, Development, and State Capitalism in China, Ya-Wen Lei explores how China’s blend of marketisation and authoritarianism has engendered a unique techno-developmental capitalism, writes George Hong Jiang. Twenty years ago, people inside and outside China were wondering whether the country would eventually capitulate to dominant capitalist and democratic models. When this happened, millions of ordinary people would get rich and become the middle class through fast-growing international trade and