TNAG-1622-FCO40-2236-Relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-China-1987 — Page 213

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tensions that were building up.

Chinese political debate

is traditionally described as a debate between

conservatives and reformers. There is of course an almost infinite shading across the political spectrum but at the risk of over-simplification, there are

arguably three, not two, focal points. There are the

conservative ideologues (the strict "Marxists") who

represent the puritan streak in Chinese history; the conservative reformers (the "pragmatists", led by Deng Xiaoping and Zhao Ziyang) who want modernisation but remain firmly committed to the supremacy (the

"dictatorship") of the Communist Party; and the progressive reformers (the "liberals", led by Hu Yaobang but described now in the Chinese press as "Rightists") who are prepared to see a sizeable degree of real

political liberalisation introduced into China as the only way of ensuring that China frees herself from her restrictive feudal traditions and ideological dogma.

4.

The

Hitherto, there has been an alliance between the

conservative and liberal reformers, in order that the programme of economic reform and the necessary supporting political reform can be pursued. But fears about creeping materialism, corruption, and a general moral vacuum in China, have led to some re-alignment. conservative ideologues and the conservative reformers

now find they agree on the need for conservatism, in particular the maintenance of the Communist Party as the country's moral guardian. The debate is shifting,

therefore, from a debate about reform, to a debate about

ideology. This process of re-aligning pre-dates Hu's

resignation. However, the pendulum nature of China's politics means that the extreme wing of the conservative

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