ABSTRACT
As inheritors of the world’s oldest continuous civilization, the Chinese can be justly proud of their achievements. The Chinese had good reasons for feeling secure in their image of themselves as the Middle Kingdom, Zhongguo, or that entity at the fringes of which the less favored groups of humanity existed. Modernization was not to be construed as slavish copying of the capitalist states but, rather, as a process of building “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Analysts differ in the particular angle from which they approach Chinese politics—economic development, for example, being more important to some and human rights considerations to others. Essentially, there have been three periods in the analysis of PRC politics. The first set of theories was fostered during the earliest years of the communist government; the second by the events of the Cultural Revolution; and the third by Deng Xiaoping’s reforms.
