Will the real China please stand up?

Which China is in control, and for how long? The China of the Communist Party, or the China of the well-educated, increasingly wealthy middle class? Another data point for the trend:

XINZHUANG, China — This winter, Liu Xianhong's life was changed for the second time by her infection with AIDS.

The first time was seven years ago, when she discovered that she, along with her newborn son, had contracted the disease through an infusion of contaminated blood given to her during childbirth.

Then late last year, her story was publicized by a leading Chinese journalist, turning one woman's quest for compensation into a national cause célèbre for a new class of advocates who are using the country's legal system to fight for social justice.

Ms. Liu's experience, all but unimaginable as recently as two or three years ago, is increasingly common in China, where a once totalitarian system is facing growing pressure from a population that is awakening to the power of independent organization. Uncounted millions of Chinese, from the rich cities of the east to the impoverished countryside, are pushing an inflexible political system for redress over issues from shoddy health care and illegal land seizures to dire pollution and rampant official corruption.[...]

"This is the way things happened in Taiwan, too," said Merle Goldman, emerita professor of Chinese history at Boston University and the author of the recently published book, "From Comrade to Citizen: the Struggle for Political Rights in China."

"In the early 50's they started to have village elections, which went from the village level and kept moving up. Then they started having NGO's, and then other independent groups and finally independent parties. The government would periodically crack down on them, but they kept coming back."[...]

"I live in Beijing, and three weeks ago there was almost no green," he said in an interview after his release from detention. "Now it is green every day. You wouldn't notice it if you were living it day to day, but the greenness is blooming everywhere now. It is the same with civil society, or with NGO's. Now there is a citizens' consciousness to participate, a willingness to defend their rights. Call it civic power."

The CCP has tried, and is failing, to reconcile one-party rule with the rule of law.

What happens when China holds a competitive national election? I've been thinking about this since I started studying this stuff, and I'm honestly not sure. But I really like reading stories like this one. The shorter the lifespan of the CCP, the better.