One of the famous sayings from Mao’s "Little Red Book" stated that "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Since the era of Mao many things have apparently changed. China has opened up to the international market. It became a member of the World Trade Organization. Before that, it had become a permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations, therefore with veto powers.

Recently China’s new President, Hu Jintao, has been trying to persuade western companies to invest in China. The 2008 Olympics seem to be the most important achievement of another "long march" for China, in the direction of the world’s democracies.

But has China really changed? We believe that its power still grows out of the barrel of a gun, even though Hu Jintao exalted the growing process of reform in his recent speech at the CCP Congress. Hu Jintao also declared to "repudiate the erroneous theory and practice of the eternal class struggle" of Marxism as sustained by the Great Helmsman, foreseeing a future Chinese government open to criticism and sensible to people’s needs, grievances and demands; a democratic future in which the most important laws will be publicly discussed. Such ideas have led the CCP to conceive of the new theory of the "Three Represents" according to which:
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