Politics of China
China practices a form of democracy that it calls socialist consultative democracy. Socialist Consultative Democracy is the form of democracy that exists in the People's Republic of China, though at least one source says that this form of democracy was created by the Communist Party of China. According to an article on Qiushi Journal, "Consultative democracy was created by the CPC and the Chinese people as a form of socialist democracy. In this sense, consultative democracy represents the grand product of our efforts to enrich and develop Marxist theories on democracy. Socialist consultative democracy exhibits distinctive features as well as unique advantages. Not only representing a commitment to socialism, it carries forward China’s fine political and cultural traditions. Not only representing a commitment to the organizational principles and leadership mode of democratic centralism, it also affirms the role of the general public in democracy. Not only representing a commitment to the leadership of the CPC, it also gives play to the role of all political parties and organizations as well as people of all ethnic groups and all sectors of society".
Ideology of the Communist Party of China
Some have likened the CCP's position under Deng to that of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin when he introduced the planned economy. Adrian Chan, the author of "Chinese Marxism", opposes this view: "To Stalin, the development of productive forces was the prerequisite for the Soviet Union to become communist." He further argues that such a view does not make sense in light of the different situations; Stalin emphasized production because of the Soviet Union's backwardness in all areas, while in China, the reforms were seen as one way to further develop the productive forces. These interpretations, while not in agreement, shed light on the fact that Chinese socialism did change during the Deng era. In 1987, the "Beijing Review" stated that the achievements of socialism were "evaluated according to the level of the productive forces".