The most recent public event in our ChinaFile Presents series, which we held October 15 in New York, was a discussion of the philosopher Daniel A. Bell’s controversial book, The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy, co-hosted with The New York Review of Books. The panelists were Timothy Garton Ash, Mark Danner, Zhang Taisu, and Andrew Nathan, and Orville Schell moderated. The following conversation includes excerpts of that discussion as well as responses to our question from other ChinaFile contributors. We will publish a full transcript of the event next week. —The Editors