In a research report titled China after Communism: Preparing for a Post-CCP China, published by Hudson Institute in July 2025 and edited by Dr. Miles Yu. The report examines the political, economic, security, and human rights challenges that could emerge in the immediate aftermath of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) collapse. It offers a strategic framework for stabilizing China and integrating it into the modern international system as a sovereign, legitimate, strong, and free nation.
The report argues that while the CCP appears entrenched, its structural vulnerabilities such as slowing economic growth, demographic decline, corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, and strained foreign relations make regime collapse plausible. Such a transition, the authors contend, would require rapid and coordinated action across multiple domains including securing borders, dismantling repressive state apparatus, protecting vulnerable communities, and laying the groundwork for constitutional democracy.
The study is structured around thematic chapters authored by specialists in military affairs, biosecurity, intelligence, finance, transitional justice, and constitutional governance. It explores potential roles for United States Special Operations Forces in supporting a provisional Chinese government, strategies for neutralizing the CCP’s dual-use bioweapons facilities, financial system reforms through recapitalization and decentralization, and securing Chinese state-owned assets located in the United States. Other chapters address restructuring the People’s Liberation Army into a defensive and professionalized force, dismantling the CCP’s security and espionage networks, safeguarding human rights in China’s autonomous regions, initiating truth and reconciliation processes, and convening a constitutional convention to define the political future of a post-communist China.
Throughout the report, the authors emphasize that a successful transition will require both domestic and international actors to balance immediate stabilization with long-term legitimacy. They caution that overbearing foreign intervention could undermine a new government’s credibility, advocating instead for discreet, locally grounded assistance that works “by, with, and through” Chinese institutions.
A recurring observation is the need to reconcile China’s deep cultural and historical attachment to the “land” with its often troubled relationship to the “sea”, a metaphor for integration into the international order of sovereign nation-states. Drawing on historical analogies from the May Fourth Movement of 1919 to the Democracy Movement of 1989, the report frames the post-CCP era as a chance to resume long-interrupted efforts at modernization and reform.
The study concludes by urging policymakers to prepare contingency plans well in advance of any regime collapse, focusing on separating the CCP from the state, preserving public order, protecting weapons of mass destruction, and enabling a free press. In doing so, it positions the collapse of the CCP not only as a crisis to be managed but as an opportunity to help China achieve an enduring equilibrium between its national identity and participation in the modern world order.
Overall, the report portrays China’s post-communist transition as both a profound challenge and a rare strategic opening, demanding nuanced, historically informed, and globally coordinated responses.