If you can't read Tom Friedman's column today, because you're not a Times Select subscriber, here's part of what you're missing:

But given that the legitimacy of the ruling Communist Party rests largely on its ability to keep raising living standards, it can't afford a recession and mass unemployment ...

Ruling Communist Party? Legitimate?

This is perhaps an unfair shot at the column, whose main thrust is that uncontrolled, unregulated economic growth is trashing the environment there, even as discontent swirls through the countryside because all they see of it is the environmental devastation. (Hey, guess what! This country, with a ruling Communist Party, "may also now be the world's most capitalist country in terms of raw energy"!) But still...

Ruling Communist Party? Legitimate?