Page 218 - SELECTED WORKS OF DENG XIAOPING Volume III

216 DENG XIAOPING
initiative; that would not be good for us.
So, both the political situation and the policy should remain stable.
Making no change means stability. If the policy is successful, yielding the
desired results in the 50-year period after 1997, we shall have little reason to
change it then. That is why I say that after the motherland is reunified under
the “one country, two systems” formula, our policy towards Hong Kong,
Macao and Taiwan will not change for 50 years and that it will remain
unchanged even beyond that period. Of course, I won’t be around at the
time, but I am convinced that our successors will understand this reasoning.
There is something else that will not change. People are happy that the
Communist Party and the government of China mean to keep the policy of
opening to the outside world unchanged. But whenever they hear the leaves
rustling in the wind—as now, when we are opposing bourgeois liberalization
—they wonder if the policy is changing. They overlook the fact that there
are two basic aspects to China’s policy. When we say there will be no change,
we refer to both aspects, not just one. The aspect that people overlook is
adherence to the Four Cardinal Principles, which include upholding the
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socialist system and leadership by the Communist Party. They suspect that
China’s open policy is changing, but they never ask about the socialist
system. That system will not change either!
We decided long ago to uphold the socialist system and the Four
Cardinal Principles, and that decision has been written into the Constitution.
It was also on the understanding that the main body of the country would
adhere to the Four Cardinal Principles that we formulated our policy towards
Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. If it were not for the Communist Party and
China’s socialist system, who would have been able to formulate a policy like
that? No individual or political party would have had the courage and
farsightedness. Isn’t that so? Nobody could have done it without courage and
resourcefulness. But courage and resourcefulness must have a basis, which in
this case consisted of the socialist system and socialist China under the
leadership of the Communist Party. We are building socialism suited to
Chinese conditions, which is why we were able to formulate the policy of
“one country, two systems” and why we can allow the two different systems
to coexist. We would not be able to do this if we lacked courage, the courage
that comes from the support of the people. Our people support the socialist
system and leadership by the Party.
Any view that neglects the Four Cardinal Principles is one-sided. When
considering whether China’s policy will change, one must also take into
consideration whether this aspect will change. To be honest, if this aspect
changed, it would be impossible to keep Hong Kong prosperous and stable.