ABSTRACT
Patriarchal rule is typical in a totalitarian state like China. The pattern of policy-making usually takes the form of "head scratching," meaning that policy-making begins with an idea generated in the mind of one or more top leaders, whether it be idealistic or realistic. To trace the origin of the political reform, we have to go back to the late 1970s. It is generally agreed that the economic reform program began at the turning point provided by the third plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee at the end of 1978. Two different types of political reform emerged after the Cultural Revolution: one in 1978, and the other in 1986; they were quite different in nature, goal, scope, and method. The political reform attempt encountered strong opposition, expressed intensively during the "anti—bourgeois liberalism" campaign of early 1987, which started after the suppression of student demonstrations at the end of 1986.
