ABSTRACT
China's role in the global political economy has expanded enormously since the 1980s and is likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. It is vital that the rest of the world understands the nature of the Communist Party of China (CPC), including the reasons why China has not adopted a Western parliamentary democratic system, why one-party rule has persisted in China while it collapsed in the USSR and what might be the future path of political change in China. The relationship of China's universities, intellectuals and young educated people to the Chinese government, the Communist Party of China and the mass of the Chinese population remains a core issue for Chinese politics to this day. Deng Xiaoping emphasized that China was still confronted by 'manifold difficulties in our economic life', which 'can only be resolved by a series of adjustments and by consolidation and reorganization'.
