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It is often said that one of the most important differences between the Mao and post-Mao eras is the replacement of “revolutionary” campaigns by “rational” bureaucratic modes of governance. With the death of Mao Zedong and the gradual but steady substitution among the political leadership of younger engineers for elderly revolutionaries, China appeared to have settled into post-revolutionary technocratic rule. Hung Yung Lee wrote in 1991,“[D] uring the Mao era the regime’s primary task—socialist revolution—reinforced its leadership method of mass mobilization and its commitment to revolutionary change....[T] he replacement of revolutionary cadres by bureaucratic technocrats signifies an end to the revolutionary era in modern China.” 1 A decade later, Cheng Li’s study of the current generation of Chinese leaders reaches a similar conclusion, observing that “the technocratic orientation in the reform era …