吳玉山提出「後極權資本主義發展國家」的概念來形容為何中國在維持高速經濟發展的同時，依然保有對國家機器的控制與公民社會的滲透，他認為中國大陸發展趨勢乃是揉合了蘇東和東亞模式，經改上的亮眼表現雖然帶來政治參與的壓力，但中共卻能夠有效轉化這些壓力，回應外界挑戰並且持續執政、鞏固一黨領導。隨著中國大陸擴展國際視野，具有留學背景的菁英也逐漸在高層政治中嶄露頭角，然而海歸菁英由於曾經接觸西方民主思潮，因此成為政治甄用對象中最有可能產生價值矛盾的族群。依循這樣的思路，本文試圖從政治菁英甄補（political recruitment）的面向，解釋中共如何在推動經濟成長的同時延續國家統治的絕對優勢。本文發現海歸派在政治領域中發揮諮詢的功能並扮演執行的角色，主要集中在學術單位與政府職能部門。在仕途發展方面，除了在原生系統升遷之外，海歸官員於不同升遷渠道間的水平流動，以「政府機關往人大政協」的晉升為主。我們認為造成這種現象的原因，乃是中共致力於推動現代化建設，但另一方面又擔心西方民主思想滲透動搖共產黨領導的結果。 / The party control over state apparatuses and civil society has remained strong during China’s rapid economic rise. The approach China has taken after economic reform has been an amalgamation of the Soviet/Eastern European and East Asian models, which is the Post-Totalitarian Capitalist Developmental State, provided by Yu-Shan Wu. Foreign-educated returnees have already emerged in China’s political arena as a distinguished political elite group, as characterized by the skills for external communication and technical knowledge that they posses. Furthermore, for the foreign-educated political elite, the experience of oversea studies also may cause tension between the one-party dictatorship thinking and the western democratic ideals in their mind. We attempt to explain how the CCP simultaneously promotes economic growth and maintains political domination from the dimension of political recruitment. There are two main findings in this paper: First, most of the returnees work in academic units and professional departments in government. They play the role of consultants or executives during decision making processes. Second, for career paths the most obvious political mobility of the foreign-educated elites among recruitment channels is the “Government toward NPC and CPPCC”. To conclude, this reveals that the Chinese leaders are determined on preventing the penetration of western democratic ideals on one hand, and accelerating the modernization of China on the other.