As China’s trajectory exposes the limitations of labels inherited from another era, understanding how governance systems work is more important
3-MIN READ3-MIN ListenChristine LohChristine Loh is chief development strategist at the Institute for the Environment, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Published: 9:30am, 10 May 2026There is growing unease in how we describe political systems today. Words that once seemed clear no longer illuminate as they should. “Free”, “democratic”, “liberal” and “authoritarian” are among the most commonly used terms in political discourse, yet their meanings have become increasingly blurred and contested.
This is not simply a matter of semantics. It reflects a deeper mismatch between the language we use and the realities we are trying to describe.
The problem is not new. In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949, he warned of a world where political language is stripped of precision and repurposed to shape perception rather than convey truth. While today’s discourse is far more open, that concern is increasingly loud in the way political labels are deployed – less as analytical tools and more as signals of approval or disapproval.
Within that framework, “authoritarianism” became its opposite: a system assumed to be rigid, repressive and ultimately inefficient. A widely held belief was that such systems, by restricting information and suppressing dissent, would struggle to innovate and adapt in a fast-changing global economy.
