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3. Economic Reform and Political Reform China's reform is a comprehensive reform, involving all socialaspects. It requires re-distribution of economic benefits and re-integration and readjustment of political power among differentstrata, groups and individuals in the society. The reform processcertainly involves certain frictions, controversies and contradictions.Political reform and economic reform should be pursuedsimultaneously. This argument is persuasive in theoretical terms.Till now it could not be implemented in reality. The reason: theresistance of the hardliners to political reform is very strong,the whole game will be lost if political reform breaks down.At present, the primary demand of the public is to live a betterlife rather than to establish Western-style democracy in China.In 1989, the reason why the public went to demonstrate inthe streets was that they could not put up with the inflation,corruption and abuse of power of some bureaucrats. They werenot for votes.In China, only economic development can pave the way foroverall reform. The process should be something like economicreform leading to economic activism, growth of the private sectorof the economy, formation of a middle class, political awakening,and then universal political demand. Political democratizationshould be a gradual process.
