For readers of the Chinese edition of Political Order and Political Decay, I thought you might like to know what parts were altered from the original text. The passages below are the English language originals, followed by the Chinese versions. If you don’t read Chinese, there is an English-only version after the Chinese text.
中国拥有强大发达的国家和软弱的法治，但民主有待加强。(p. 21)
中国拥有强大发达的国家，但法治薄弱，民主缺失。
这解释了他所谓的“外围”的政党，如俄共等共产主义政党，一开始仅有非常少的庇护和腐败。它们需要严格的纪律，上台之前确实也没有好处可以分发 (p. 82)
这解释了他所谓的“外围”的政党，如俄国和中国的共产主义革命政党，一开始仅有非常少的庇护和腐败。它们需要严格的纪律，上台之前确实也没有好处可以分发
…… (p. 325)
在毛泽东治下，法律几乎消失殆尽，举国陷入恣意专制。
对法律的破坏 (p. 329)
毛泽东对法律的破坏
…… (p. 329)
毛泽东此时已然享有“伟大舵手”之尊，因而得以行极端个人独裁之道，以至全然抛弃对法律的矫饰。尽管理论上中国历代帝王皆为绝对君主，其权力却依然受官僚体系及宫廷庞杂规章礼仪所限。 纵览历史，一己之权可同毛泽东相提并论者，除公元前三世纪统一中华的秦始皇、七世纪唐朝“毒侔蛇虺”的女皇武曌，及十四世纪明朝开国皇帝朱元璋外，再无他人。暴秦日后一统中原，毛泽东以秦之法家商鞅为集权先驱而大加推崇，实非偶然。
周恩来总理在1958年解释：“……我们的法律制定应该跟上经济基础的变化。制度、规章和条令不应该是固定不变的，我们不要怕变。我们主张不断革命，法律应为继续革命服务……” (p. 330)
周恩来总理在1958年解释：“我们无产阶级，为什么叫法律来约束自己呢！…… 我们的法，应当随着经济基础的不断发展而发展。不能把规章制度都固定下来，我们不能怕变。我们是不断革命的，我们的发必须为不断革命服务。 …… 即使今天制定的法而明天就改了，也没有什么不可以。” (original quote from 周总理1958年9月16日参观国务院规章制度展览会时对我国革命法制建设问题的意见, p. 200—201, 法学基础理论 学习资料选编 上. 北京大学法律学系, 1982.04.)
“大跃进”是一场受意识形态驱动的运动，目标是动员群众支持工业化，结果却带来大饥荒…… (p. 330)
“大跃进”是一场受意识形态驱动的运动，目标是动员群众支持工业化，结果却带来了一场据估造成3600万人死亡的大饥荒。
…… (p. 330)
中华人民共和国成立后宪法的发展彰显了共产党在真正建立法治方面的失败。
几乎所有的共产主义国家都跟随苏联采用了正式宪法…… (p. 331)
几乎所有的共产主义国家都跟随苏联采用了形式主义的宪法，在真正限制政治权力方面形同虚设。
另一方面，宪法序言中的四项基本原则，使共产党在整个政治体制中的支配地位神圣不可侵犯。在实践中，共产党对政府和立法机构实行严格控制……法律仍然更多地是统治的工具，而不是合法性的内在源泉。(p. 331)
另一方面，宪法序言中的四项基本原则，使共产党在整个政治体制中的支配地位神圣不可侵犯。在实践中，共产党对政府和立法机构实行严格控制。唯有共产党得以修改宪法，而现存的所有宪制文件都几乎未经讨论就由全国代表大会的橡皮图章批准。2004年修改宪法前，党似乎开始允许学者和其它评论员公开讨论其中的部分内容，但这些讨论随后遭到迅速压制，而最终的更改则是在实质上的强行规定之下，提交全国人民代表大会正式批准。显然，党在法之上，而非之下。与中国帝制王朝的情况相同，法律仍然更多地是统治的工具，而不是合法性的内在源泉。
…… (p. 332)
此外，与政府不同，党不可成为此类诉讼的对象。
…… (p. 335)
重庆市委书记薄熙来于2012年遭到解职，外界的一种揣测认为，其原因在于薄熙来恰恰正试图组建这样一种具有非凡人格魅力的政治基础，通过诉诸民粹主义的趋势和对毛泽东时期的怀念，谋求成为政治局常委会的一员。薄熙来事件同时体现了当代中国基于规则的决策体系的优势和不足。
…… (p. 335)
因此，中国现任领导人习近平对宪政原则本身的破坏，无异于一项重大退步。
…… (p. 339)
只不过，如今扮演皇帝这一角色的是共产党，其宦官干部监管者庞杂的官僚机构。
…… (p. 341)
对学生抗议者的杀戮打击了早期民主转型的希望，遭受举世谴责，而寻求在更大程度上恢复共产主义正统的党内左派则感到安慰。但是，邓小平本人意识到，这一保守势力的反动将阻碍党的存续 。
…… (p. 343)
天安门广场上的许多学生抗议者所抱怨的，正是反对政府和党官的腐败。
新兴的中产阶级越来越多地选择合作，支持共产党统治的延续。(p. 343)
因此，曾经为天安门抗议提供社会基础的新兴中产阶级，已越来越多地选择合作，支持共产党统治的延续。
…… (p. 381)
所有的威权政权都不免遭受对其统治的抵抗，同时也都以镇压与吸纳并举的方式回应这一抵抗。同朝鲜的集权政权，或是诸如埃及胡斯尼·穆巴拉克（Hosni Mubarak）和利比亚穆阿迈尔·卡扎菲（Muammar Qaddafi）的独裁统治相比，中国的天平远更倾向于吸纳的方向。
…… (p. 346)
我们并不清楚，高层官员是否真的比低层腐败程度更低。
…… (p. 348)
总之，自毛泽东、邓小平时代之后，党的权威在相当程度上遭到了削弱。在中国由中等收入国家迈向高收入国家的艰难征程中，随着党的政绩不可避免地发生弱化，而其权威也会进一步削弱。在胡锦涛治下，政治改革近乎停滞，而经济政策的自由化程度也不如以往。
…… (p. 348)
如果经济增长减缓，甚至陷入衰退，共产党将无法清晰阐述为何垄断的权力为其所应得。
不会，因为不能指望自上而下的命令。…… (p. 348)
这一过程（法治和民主问责的扩展）不会因本届领导层自上而下的命令而发生，因为当前的领导层极为自信，没有展现出任何政治进步的意愿。
…… (p. 496)
党的领导层本身已经深陷腐败之中，因而改革可能给不少高官带来个人层面上的危险。尽管大多数中国人早已在多年之前就不再信仰马列主义，党依然坚守着这一意识形态。
Below are the changes made to the text, for English readers:
“Hence the People’s Republic of China has a strong and well-developed state but a weak rule of law and no democracy [rephrased as “a democracy that needs enhancement”].”
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“This explains why what he labels “externally organized” parties like revolutionary Communist parties in Russia and China [deleted] initially displayed much lower levels of patronage and corruption; they needed to be tightly disciplined and had no benefits to distribute before they came to power.”
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“Under Mao Zedong, law virtually disappeared and the country became an arbitrary despotism. [deleted]”
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“MAO’S [deleted] ASSAULT ON LAW”
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“Mao Zedong had by this point acquired such stature as “the Great Helmsman” that he was able to embark on a personal dictatorship so extreme that it completely dismantled all semblance of law. Even though emperors in dynastic China were in theory absolute sovereigns, their power was in fact limited by the bureaucracy and the myriad rules, procedures, and rituals by which the court operated. One would have to go back to Qin Shi Huangdi, unifier of China in the third century B.C., Wu Zhao, the “evil empress Wu” of the Tang Dynasty in the seventh century, or the first Ming emperor, Zhu Yuangzhang, in the fourteenth, to find precedents for Mao’s personal exercise of power. It is no accident that Mao celebrated Shang Yang, the Legalist mastermind of the dictatorial state of Qin that unified China, as a protototalitarian predecessor. [deleted]”
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“As Premier Zhou Enlai was to explain in 1958, “Why should we proletarians be restrained by laws?!… [deleted] Our law should be developed in pace with the changes of the economic base. Institutions, rules and regulations should not be fixed. We should not be afraid of changes. We have advocated uninterrupted revolutions and the law should be in the service of the continuing revolution … It does not matter if we make a law today and change it tomorrow. [deleted]”
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“The [Great Leap Forward] was an ideologically driven campaign whose goal was to mobilize mass support for industrialization but instead brought about a famine estimated to have killed thirty-six million people [deleted].”
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“The evolution of constitutions since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) tells a story about the failure of the Communist Party to create a true rule of law. [deleted]”
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“Virtually all Communist countries followed the lead of the former Soviet Union in adopting formal constitutions that were essentially worthless pieces of paper in terms of any real constraints on political power [deleted].”
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“On the other hand, the Four Fundamental Principles with which the constitution begins enshrine the domination of the political system by the Communist Party, which in practice exercises strict control over the government and legislature. No one has authority to modify the constitution other than the party, and all existing constitutional documents were rubber-stamped by NPCs with little discussion. Prior to the 2004 constitutional revisions, it appeared that the party was permitting some open discussion of them by academics and other commentators, but these were quickly shut down and the final changes were essentially dictated to the NPC for ratification. The party clearly operates above and not under the law. As in dynastic China, [deleted] law remains an instrument of rule, and not an intrinsic source of legitimacy.”
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“Moreover, it is only the government and not the party that can be sued in this fashion [deleted].”
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“One of the speculations concerning the sacking of Chongqing party leader Bo Xilai in 2012 was that he was building precisely such a charismatic political base, making use of both populist appeals and Maoist-era nostalgia in a bid to become a member of the Politburo’s Standing Committee. The Bo Xilai affair illustrates both the strengths and weaknesses of rule-based decision making in the contemporary Chinese system. [deleted]”
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“It is for this reason that attacks by China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, on the principle of constitutionalism itself are highly regressive. [deleted]”
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“Only this time, it was the Communist Party that played the role of the emperor with his eunuch cadres supervising a vast bureaucracy. [deleted]”
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“The killing of student protesters undermined hopes for an early democratic transition and was widely condemned around the world. It also gave comfort to leftists in the party who hoped for a return to greater Communist orthodoxy. Deng himself, however, realized that the party’s survival would be undermined by such a conservative reaction. [deleted]”
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“Many of the complaints of the student protesters in Tiananmen Square were against corruption on the part of government and party officials. [deleted]”
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“The emerging Chinese middle class that had provided the social basis for the Tiananmen protests [deleted] was thus increasingly co-opted into supporting the continuation of Communist Party rule.”
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“All authoritarian regimes encounter resistance to their rule in one form or another, and all respond with a mixture of repression and co-optation. When compared to a totalitarian state like North Korea, or the Arab dictatorships of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt or Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, the Chinese balance has tended to lean much more in the direction of cooptation. [deleted]”
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“But it is not really clear whether the higher levels are in fact less corrupt than the lower ones. [deleted]”
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“The party’s authority is substantially diminished in any event since the days of Mao and Deng, and as its performance weakens, as it inevitably must given China’s difficult path from being a middle-income to a high-income country, authority will weaken further. Under Hu Jintao, political reform was largely suspended and economic policy turned in a less liberal direction. [deleted]”
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“If that [economic] growth slows or goes into reverse, the CCP will not have a coherent story to tell about why it deserves a monopoly of power. [deleted]”
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“This will not happen as a result of top-down mandates by the current leadership, which is brimming with self-confidence and shows little inclination to move on the political front [deleted].”
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“The party leadership itself has fallen into patterns of corruption that make reform personally dangerous for many of them. The party continues to cling to Marxism-Leninism as an ideology, despite the fact that most Chinese ceased to believe in it many years ago. [deleted]”
