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1986–1988 — The Political-Reform Research Group’s Drafts (Zhao Ziyang / Bao Tong)

A. Establishment, venue, and membership

(a) Canonical facts

  1. September 1986 — the Central Committee establishes the Central Political System Reform Study Group (中央政治体制改革研讨小组). A PRC party-history journal account states that after the 6th Plenum of the 12th Central Committee put political-system reform into the modernization program, “on Deng Xiaoping’s suggestion and in line with his ideas on goals and content, the Central Committee established the Central Political System Reform Study Group, organizing theoretical and practical workers to conduct专题研讨 and research.” [STRONG — 晋阳学刊 2016(6) via hprc.org.cn; official-historical framing]
  2. The Politburo Standing Committee created a five-person “central discussion group for reform of the political structure.” A 2022 peer-reviewed monograph records: “In September 1986, the Standing Committee of the Politburo established a five-person ‘central discussion group for reform of the political structure’, comprising three middle-aged technocratic reformers (Zhao Ziyang, Hu Qili, Tian Jiyun) and two veteran revolutionaries (Bo Yibo and Peng Chong). Deng asked the group to outline the political reform proposal.” [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li (2022), p. ~59; the author cites the group’s composition without a primary citation; the five names match Zhao’s own memoir chronology, see (a)(4)]
  3. CORRECTION — the group was five-person, not seven. Prior internal notes framed a “seven-member group” （七人小组） with these five names. The seven-member body that existed in October 1986 was a different group — the personnel-arrangements group for the 13th Congress (Bo Yibo, Yang Shangkun, Song Renqiong, Yao Yilin, Wang Zhen, Wu Xiuquan, Gao Yang). The political-reform study group had exactly the five members named above. [STRONG — converging accounts; the 7-vs-5 conflation is resolved]
  4. Zhao Ziyang’s memoir dates his leadership to October 1986. The chronology in Prisoner of the State (2009) states: “1986 October — Becomes leader of a new group with the mandate of proposing a political reform package, the Study Group for the Reform of the Political System. Other members are Hu Qili, Tian Jiyun, Bo Yibo, and Peng Chong.” [ATTRIBUTED — Zhao’s memoir, via the English edition; date conflict with the September 1986 establishment date is preserved: decision/formation September, Zhao’s formal leadership dated October]
  5. Precursors. In early 1986, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences convened discussions on political reform; Su Shaozhi and Yan Jiaqi presented papers with specific suggestions, “highly welcomed by the CCP reformers Wan Li and Tian Jiyun” [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li]. At the July/August 1986 Beidaihe policy-review meeting, Deng Xiaoping, Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang, Hu Qili, Li Xiannian, Chen Yun, Peng Zhen, Yang Shangkun, and Yu Qiuli “discussed in detail the question of reform of the political system” [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li].
  6. The working office. Bao Tong (鲍彤) served as director of the study group’s office （研讨小组办公室主任） — corroborated by biographical records and by the RFA obituary’s “Director of the Office of Political Reform of the Central Committee” [STRONG for the role; PROBABLE for the exact office title form]. After the 13th Congress (October 1987), the body was renamed from the “Political Structural Reform Office” （政治体制改革办公室） to the “Research Center for the Reform of the Political Structure under the Central Committee” （中共中央政治体制改革研究室）, i.e., from a work-office to a research unit [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li; corroborated by participant Wu Wei’s byline identifying himself as a former researcher （原研究员） of the 政治体制改革研究室].
  7. Staff (40+). A published roster lists, under Zhao Ziyang as patron: directors Yan Jiaqi (Director, CASS Institute of Political Science), Bao Tong (Zhao’s secretary; Deputy Director, State Commission for Economic Restructuring), He Guanghui (Deputy Director, same commission), Zhou Jie (Deputy Director, Central Party Office; office secretary), Chen Yizi (State Commission for Economic Restructuring; head of its research institute), Chen Fujin (Central Party Office politics-and-law branch); secretaries Xu Shiming, Bei Jibo, Liu Hong; and research associates including Wu Guoguang (People’s Daily journalist), Wu Wei (Central Party School graduate student), Chi Fulin, Gao Shan, Gu Yunchang, Ying Songnian, and others drawn from research institutes, universities, the People’s Daily, and the economic-reform apparatus. Per the participant source quoted, the group “was not Zhao Ziyang’s personal consultation office, but a formal organization belonging to the central government”; most staff were in their thirties and forties, all CCP members. [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li, Table 1.3, citing Wu Guoguang, 《赵紫阳与政治改革》 (Hong Kong: Pacific Century Institute, 1997), p. 35]
  8. Venue. The group held meetings at a fixed Beijing venue, unnamed in the sources read. In October 1986, “encouraged by Chen Yun, the conservative leaders Hu Qiaomu and Deng Liqun gathered their followers in the same place where the political reform group held meetings, to organize the campaign against Zhao Ziyang” [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li, citing Merle Goldman, Sowing the Seeds, p. 232]. The exact building is UNRESOLVED.
  9. Working method. The group collected reading materials (including Western political-science works) and convened “hundreds of seminars and conferences presided over by Zhao,” inviting scholars, officials, overseas Chinese, and Western economists [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li]. The process ran “totally behind the doors… never allowed to be reported by the Chinese media” [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li].

(b) Official PRC position (as evidenced in the 1986–87 process)

  • The September 1986 establishment was presented as acting on Deng Xiaoping’s suggestion, to “conduct专题研讨 and research” and produce a preliminary plan — i.e., an authorized study process, not a decision to adopt reforms. [STRONG — party-history journal]
  • Deng’s substantive guidance, as recorded in the same journal: political reform must suit China’s conditions; “separate Party and government” is about daily work division; uphold the people’s congress system (no Western bicameralism), CCP leadership (non-negotiable), and the Four Cardinal Principles; proceed step by step, with leadership and in order. [STRONG — official retrospective account; the underlying Deng remarks are documented in 《邓小平文选》 vol. 3 and People’s Daily 1987-06-13, not line-verified this pass]

B. The drafts — titles and drafting sequence

(a) Canonical facts

  1. 《政治体制改革总体设想》 (“General Conception of Political System Reform”) — the preliminary plan. The party-history journal states: “the study group, on the basis of absorbing opinions from all sides and after repeated deliberation, formed the preliminary plan of the 《政治体制改革总体设想》.” This is the only draft title with official confirmation. No public full text of this document was located in this pass. [STRONG for existence and title; UNRESOLVED for text]
  2. Drafting sequence toward Deng Xiaoping (monograph account): Zhao sent his first draft to Deng for review at the end of 1986; Deng rejected content such as a system of checks and balances (the student movement and “bourgeois liberalization” then worried him). Zhao submitted a second draft in March 1987; it was not approved until May 1987. The final version of the political-reform proposal was passed at the Seventh Plenum of the 12th Central Committee (September 1987) and became the main feature of Zhao’s report to the 13th Party Congress in October 1987. [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li; the first/second draft titles and texts are not given]
  3. The draft package’s discussed contents (monograph account, itself citing Wu Guoguang 1997 and Goldman): separation of Party and government (reducing the blurred Party-government lines left by the Cultural Revolution); cadre-system reform — professionalizing qualifications, merit in promotion decisions, institutionalizing the cadre-management （干部管理/任免） system on a “selectorate, not electorate” basis, introducing a civil-service system; strengthening the legal system to fight corruption and discipline the Party — via public polls, hotlines for popular input and complaints, and a Scandinavian-style ombudsman system; making labor unions more representative of workers’ interests; granting more freedom to media, literature, and art while still requiring them to stress the positive aspects of socialism; mobilizing intellectuals for reform participation; encouraging multiparty cooperation under CCP leadership. Notably, “there had been little discussion about education reform to create a more democratic political culture.” [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li; this is the traceable lineage of the prior internal summary — see Corrections §H]
  4. Refinement vs. the prior internal summary: the traceable source adds three items the prior summary omitted — (i) public polls alongside hotlines; (ii) institutionalizing the cadre-management system on a “selectorate, not electorate” basis; (iii) mobilizing intellectuals for reform participation. The prior summary’s “multiparty cooperation under CCP leadership” matches the source’s “encouraging multiparty cooperation under the dictatorship of the CCP” (the source’s English rendering). None of these items should be presented as one published document — they are a secondary synthesis of what the group’s conferences and seminars discussed. [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li]
  5. Neoauthoritarianism. The monograph states that “neoauthoritarianism (xinquanwei zhuyi)” — stressing strong, centralized technocratic leadership — was “formulated by certain think tank members (mainly Bao Tong and Wu Guoguang) under the guidance of Zhao” [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li]. This doctrinal label is recorded as the author’s characterization; its verbatim use by the group is UNRESOLVED.

(d) Named positions

  • Bao Tong’s orientation: wanted “a more efficient, more popular communist system,” taking Japan’s Meiji Restoration as a model of successful top-down reform [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li, citing Goldman/Wu Guoguang]. Bao’s own primary-text account of the 1986–87 work was not located this pass.
  • Yan Jiaqi’s orientation: “wanted to go further — a fundamental change in the communist authoritarian system.” After Yan and his wife Gao Gao’s book A History of the Ten-Year Cultural Revolution was banned in early 1987, Yan stopped attending and then withdrew from the group; “tension grew between the two and led to their final breaking up in 1987” [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li]. The split is now supported by a second scholarly account beyond the prior single-source summary, but both trace to the same participant/scholarly lineage (Wu Guoguang/Goldman) — grade remains ATTRIBUTED, not VERIFIED; neither Bao’s nor Yan’s own account was found.
  • Zhao Ziyang’s own definition (quoted via the participant source): “The political reform is not going to discuss whether the CCP should be a ruling Party, but is going to discuss how the CCP rule China” [ATTRIBUTED — Wu Guoguang 1997, p. 151, via Jie Li].
  • Deng Xiaoping’s limits (via Zhao’s memoir as analyzed by a Hoover-published scholar): Deng “had points about the operation of the existing political system he was not happy about, and his proposals for reform were real. But the reform he had in mind was not a real modernization of politics and democratization, but primarily a sort of administrative reform, concrete reforms in the work system, the organization system, the method of work, and the style of work.” No Western-style tripartite division of powers was ever contemplated. In 1988, when Zhao suggested increasing the democratic parties’ political participation, “Deng adamantly opposed any party activities by the democratic parties in the context of the NPC” — individuals from the democratic parties could be promoted to administrative posts only as individuals, not as party representatives [ATTRIBUTED — Fewsmith, “What Zhao Ziyang Tells Us about Elite Politics in the 1980s,” Hoover/China Leadership Monitor].
  • The group explicitly excluded non-establishment intellectuals: Fang Lizhi, Chen Ziming, and Wang Juntao were “absolutely rejected” from participation “for fearing those non-establishment liberalists would hurt the reform as well as themselves” [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li]. No position of the reformist camp as a whole is asserted beyond what is sourced.

(c) Contemporaneous responses

  • Conservative counter-organization (October 1986): Hu Qiaomu and Deng Liqun, encouraged by Chen Yun, gathered followers in the same meeting venue to organize against Zhao [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li, citing Goldman]. This is contemporaneous opposition, not a published critique of the drafts.
  • Non-establishment intellectuals regarded the process as “not a genuine desire for democracy” — “proceeding within the framework of the CCP monopoly… a pseudodemocracy or even antiliberalism.” After hearing Zhao’s 13th Congress report, Fang Lizhi remarked to a Hong Kong interviewer that “Mao Zedong[‘s] speeches were even better to listen to than this one. It is not enough just to read the speeches… You also have to keep your eye on the concrete indicators” [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li, citing Richard Baum, Burying Mao, p. 223].

C. The public endpoint — the 13th Party Congress, October 25, 1987

(a) Canonical facts

  1. October 25 – November 1, 1987 — the 13th CCP National Congress, Beijing (Great Hall of the People). 1,936 delegates and 61 specially invited delegates attended, representing over 46 million Party members; Zhao Ziyang, commissioned by the 12th Central Committee, delivered the report 《沿着有中国特色的社会主义道路前进》 (“Advance Along the Road of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”). The congress adopted the socialist-initial-stage theory, the Party’s basic line for the initial stage, and the three-step development strategy; it elected the 13th Central Committee (175 full, 110 alternate members) by competitive election for the first time. [STRONG — public congress record]
  2. The report’s political-reform section set the long-term goal: “conducting political structural reform is to eliminate abuses and build a socialist democratic politics with Chinese characteristics. The long-term goal of the reform is to establish a socialist political system that is highly democratic, with a complete legal system, efficient and full of vitality” （进行政治体制改革，就是要兴利除弊，建设有中国特色的社会主义民主政治。改革的长远目标，是建立高度民主、法制完备、富有效率、充满活力的社会主义政治体制） [STRONG — official party-history journal quoting the report’s blueprint language].
  3. Deng’s 1980 speech as programmatic anchor. Deng Xiaoping’s August 18, 1980 speech 《党和国家领导制度的改革》 was honored by the 13th Congress as the “programmatic document” （纲领性文献） for China’s political-system reform [ATTRIBUTED — Wu Wei, former researcher of the political-reform research office, in a 2014 essay; corroborates the report’s framing of the reform as continuous with Deng’s 1980 program, not a break].
  4. Zhao’s memoir chronology describes the outcome as “the one and only political reform package in CCP history,” attempting to change “the way the CCP governs” — including separation of power between Party and state [ATTRIBUTED — Prisoner of the State chronology; the memoir’s characterization, not the report’s wording].

(f) Later outcome evidence

  • The research office’s post-13th-Congress work “only concentrated on theoretical discussions; they even could not conclude a final blueprint of the political reform” to submit, amid the 1988 price-reform crisis and the 1989 Beijing Spring; the group “had already ceased to function” before the spring of 1989 [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li].
  • After June 4, 1989: “following the purge of patron Zhao Ziyang, most of the group staff was afflicted by the political trouble, some of them were taken into custody.” Bao Tong was arrested May 28, 1989, expelled from the Party in March 1992, convicted in July 1992 of “revealing state secrets and counter-revolutionary propagandizing” and sentenced to seven years; released May 1996 and kept under house arrest until his death on November 9, 2022 [ATTRIBUTED for the arrest/conviction arc — encyclopedia/RFA records; the group-staff purge claim ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li]. Yan Jiaqi fled abroad [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li].
  • The civil-service component discussed by the group was only implemented after Zhao’s fall [ATTRIBUTED — Jie Li: “its transformation from cadre system to Western civil servant system was only implemented after Zhao’s fall in 1989”]. The broader reform package was shelved — no post-1989 implementation is documented in the sources read.
  • Zhao’s 13th Congress claim to political reform remained the Party’s last adopted political-reform blueprint of this scope; the memoir chronology’s “one and only political reform package in CCP history” is recorded as the memoir’s judgment.

G. Analytical inference (labeled)

  • The documented record supports two distinct layers that must not be merged: (1) an authorized internal study process (Sept 1986 – ~Oct 1987) that produced at least one preliminary plan (《政治体制改革总体设想》) and successive drafts reviewed by Deng Xiaoping; (2) the public 13th Congress report section, which is the only text the Party adopted. The internal drafts’ texts are unattested in public sources; attributing the discussed package items (ombudsman, hotlines, multiparty cooperation) to the adopted report would be unsupported. [INFERENCE — evidence-graded]
  • The formation-date discrepancy (September 1986 PSC decision vs. October 1986 in Zhao’s memoir chronology) most plausibly reflects decision-versus-formal-leadership dating, but no source states this; both dates are preserved. [INFERENCE — evidence-graded]
  • The Bao-vs-Yan split is now carried by two scholarly accounts (Jie Li 2022; Goldman via Jie Li), but both trace to the same participant/scholarly lineage (Wu Guoguang 1997). It remains unattested in either man’s own published account. Grade stays ATTRIBUTED. [INFERENCE — evidence-graded]

Primary-source targets (full list in the claims log)

The actual draft texts remain unlocated as primary sources: (1) 《政治体制改革总体设想》 preliminary plan and the end-1986 / March-1987 drafts sent to Deng Xiaoping; (2) Wu Guoguang, 《赵紫阳与政治改革》 (1997) full text; (3) Wu Wei, 《政治改革与当代中国》 full text; (4) Bao Tong’s own account of the 1986–87 work; (5) Yan Jiaqi’s account of his participation and 1987 withdrawal; (6) the study panels’ names, topics, and sub-reports; (7) Zhao Ziyang’s 《改革历程》 section 6 on political reform (full text); (8) the group’s meeting venue. These are recorded as PRIMARY-SOURCE-TARGET lines in the claims log.

Terminal state: PRIMARY-SOURCE-GAP — the draft documents themselves were not located as primary texts in this pass; the formation, membership, drafting sequence, discussed contents, public endpoint, and post-1989 fate are documented above from official-historical and scholarly secondary sources with graded attribution.

Evidence file: `histpol-families/1986-1988-reform-group-drafts.md` — compiled 2026-09-24. Public-facing: contains no internal project terminology.