Washington (AsiaNews) - Recently, many scholars within the Communist system talk about two different reforms within the period between the 1989 June 4 Tiananmen crackdown and Deng Xiaoping's southern China tour.  Before that period, there were political reforms and economic reforms in parallel; after that period, political reform has been lagging behind economic reform, which was called lame reform.

In fact, during the so-called era of dual reform, political reform also encountered a great deal of resistance.  Within only one decade, Deng Xiaoping engaged several campaigns: from the "strike hard movement" to undermine reform toward a rule of law, to the June 4 Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.  In between, there were several efforts of "eliminating the spiritual pollution", until two of the Secretary-Generals of the Communist Party stepped down.  Deng's purpose had been to prevent the reform of the political system.

Now, some well-known people within the Communist system have been working on some theoretical seminars.  Their plot is really to use the already dead Deng to overpower the living devils.  Their basic tone still draws a blueprint of reform based on the bottom line of the one party dictatorship of the Communist Party.  That is why they are whitewashing for Deng.

Their experimental model seems to be the Guangdong model that has recently been touted.  Some scholars have pointed out that a major feature of this model is to bring the mass leaders into the Communist Party system, in order to adjust the mass movement into the track of the ruling clique of the Communist Party.  That plan is to nip the bud of the resistance movement, in an effort to reach a goal of maintaining stability by breaching the opposition from within.

Will this plot succeed?  I have to laugh at these Communist Party members for reaching the end of their rope and only repeat a trick taught by their ancestors: to include the rebel leaders into the Communist Party, as a way to effectively control them.  Mao Zedong and his wife Jiang Qing used this rotten trick during the Cultural Revolution period.  That trick was not very effective even back then, in fact, it was a total failure.

During the few years of the Cultural Revolution, political stars among the rebels changed rapidly.  Eventually, they found a political idiot Wang HongWen, who failed and could accomplish nothing when he was needed.  Can you see that the conflicts between the people and the interest groups of the Communist Party have far surpassed what they were forty years ago?  The number of people fooled then was totally different that the awakening of the people now.  The Communist rulers now do not have the skill of Mao Zedong to trick the ordinary people, yet want to use the already outdated means of Mao.  There is a saying called "marking the boat without regard to the changing circumstances of the river".  These Chinese Communist reformists need to think of this saying while looking in the mirror.

Some people will not be convinced and ask me back: "So tell me what is the real reform?"  I say that with the current situation in China, reform has to be a revolution.  If we do not have true reform, then there will be a violent revolution.  It is very similar to the Arabic countries in North Africa last year.  Everyone is clear in his mind about one thing: that we must get rid of the one-party dictatorship.  Otherwise, we will not be able to go over this mountain by any other alternative.

Let me penetrate this subject further.  The so-called reforms of Deng Xiaoping were because he realized that the social system of the Communist Party had already failed, and thus he had to go back to the traditional form of ruling China.  In the old China, it was a small-scale democracy led by local gentlemen and the elite, which kept an authoritarian rule over the majority of the people.  The central governments were composed of a group of elites concentrated by a standard of examinations, who then assisted the emperor in decision-making through the form of parliaments composed of the court and various departments and supervision departments.  It was also a small-scale democracy that although sometimes got interrupted.  This model was more compatible with the ancient Chinese society, which has a majority made up of common people rather than serfs.

That system was a little more advanced than the western world of the same period, wherein in the ruling of serfs was conducted by an aristocracy and the church.  That is why the Chinese society could be maintained for more than two thousand years before the advent of modern Western democratic systems.  After the emergence of democratic systems in the West, looking back, its flaws are obvious.  Among Asians and the world, the Chinese people were the first to accept the thoughts of Western democracy.  This fact is quite related to the traditional small-scale democratic culture in Chinese history.

By the way, the thought of equality before the law in modern Western legal systems was also inspired by the Chinese legal culture such as "before law, a crown prince is the same as the common people", through political thinkers such as Baron de Montesquieu.  In the early period of the modern democratization of the West, the cultural elites were very envious of China's legal culture and ruling skill.  Conversely, Chinese people are very receptive to Western democracy and legal culture.  It has a lot to do with this kind of cultural exchange.

So now that the Chinese people have already learned of the democratic system invented by the Westerners, they will not be convinced to return to the emperor's method.  In an unforeseen accident of history, the heresy of the Communist Party led many Chinese people to stray into the wrong path.  Further, due to unexpected international situations and stupid decisions by then American government, the Communist Party got its opportunity to test their heresy.  From the very beginning, it failed miserably.  It only took a few years for Mao Zedong to fall from a god of the Chinese people to their bane.

The more than 2,000 years of the common people's social culture resulted in the Chinese being particularly unable to adapt to a Communist rule that is similar to the European medieval serfdom.  In the initial few years of its rule, the Communist Party became aware that this problem was very serious.  Some people wanted to retreat a half step toward capitalism, while others believed that the problem was due to an incomplete implementation of communism.  This is the struggle between lines within the Communist Party during that time.

During this struggle, the completely communist Mao Zedong had a victory.  The result of him continuing on this path was wide spread indignation and discontent.  The state faced collapse and had to choose a new path.  At that time, Deng XiaoPing, who did not read books or newspapers but playing bridge all day long, accidentally usurped the supreme power.  What good idea could he come up with?  To establish a democratic system according to the Chinese people's century long hope would mean that they must give up the one-party dictatorship.  Of course they were not willing to.

So they had to take out that old model of the ancestors, the small-scale elite democracy implementing an authoritarian rule over the majority of people.  Before the advent of Western democracy, it was also a ruling method that matched with a market economy.  Its character and shortcomings are bound to suppress opposition opinion, lack good protection of human rights, and violate the basic human nature that is constantly pursued by humans since they separated from the animal world.

Inevitably, the return to the ancestor type of reform by Deng Xiaoping met its end quickly.  It resulted in intense contradiction and tumultuous popular discontent.  Under the current world structure, in China where not just the elite, but also the majority of the people are awakened and pursuing democracy, playing these outdated tricks is bound to crash.  There is no room in Chinese people's minds to tolerate these tricks anymore.  Honestly conducted democratic revolution is the only feasible way out.

More than 100 years ago, the Chinese people already prepared themselves to implement the Western style democracy.  The winding road has come to an end.  History has proven Sun Yat-sen's words: "History's tide is mighty.  Those who submit to the world trend will prosper, while those who resist shall perish".  Now the Chinese Communist Party must choose to submit itself to the world trend or to resist.  This one party dictatorship needs to choose to take the initiative to fade like the former Soviet Union, or to perish like Qaddafi.  The distinction is very large.