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This paper argues for a close connection between political trust and overall regime-legitimacy in authoritarian systems such as the Chinese. It analyses the effects of perceived performance (in terms of perceived political and economic performance and perceived financial well-being) and political culture (in terms of hierarchical and conflict orientations) on political trust in the imagined, central state and the real, executive state. It also includes other previously tested variables such as internal political efficacy and media consumption. The results show that political trust is an outcome of aspects of per-formance (in particular political performance) and parts of political culture. Political trust can be better understood when we try to gauge the interaction patterns between both. The detailed analysis reveals important indirect effects of performance being shaped by as-pects of political culture and well-being. The results also suggest that there is a strong effect of trust in the real state on confidence in the imagined state. However, media con-sumption seems to no longer affect political trust while internal efficacy does affect attitudes on the imagined state. Lastly, indirect and direct effects from structural variables such as age, education, and income on political trust suggest that trust levels and probably also regime legitimacy are structurally inclined to decrease in the future unless the regime finds a way to make its political system less vulnerable to an increasingly skeptical citizenry. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]