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Until the Cultural Revolution, the predominant western view of contemporary Chinese elite conflict was that it consisted of “discussion” (t'ao-lun) within a basically consensual Politburo among shifting “opinion groups” with no “organized force” behind them. The purges and accusations which began in 1965 and apparently still continue, have shaken this interpretation, and a number of scholars have advanced new analyses - sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit, sometimes of general application, sometimes applied only to a particular time span or segment of the political system. Of these new views, perhaps the most systematic - and at the same time the one which represents the least change from the pre-Cultural Revolution “opinion group” model - is the “policy making under Mao” interpretation, which sees conflict as essentially a bureaucratic decision-making process dominated by Mao.

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A 1990 national sample survey shows that the Chinese population was concerned with issues relating to reform, economic and social grievances, and democracy. Although neither political issues nor social cleavages were the same as in the West, the same dynamics affected the process of ideological alignment. Social position and cognitive sophistication help explain why members of the population hold liberal or conservative attitudes.