Elizabeth J. Perry is Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government at Harvard University and Director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute. Her research focuses on the history of the Chinese revolution and its implications for contemporary Chinese politics. Perry, who was born in Shanghai, to American missionary parents, is the author or editor of more than 20 books, including, Challenging the Mandate of Heaven: Social Protest and State Power in China (Routledge); Beyond Regimes: China and India Compared (Harvard, 2018); and Ruling by Other Means: State-Mobilized Movements (Cambridge, forthcoming). In this lightly edited interview, we discussed the secrets of the Chinese Communist Party’s success, how Xi Jinping uses ideology and history to mobilize the masses, and why Mao Zedong still matters. Elizabeth Perry.Credit: Kate Copeland Q: For decades, Western political scientists predicted that Communist China would either collapse or liberalize as it reformed its economy and got richer. Bu