Over the last 35 years, China has gone through great changes. This period of change presented major challenges to the Communist Party's ideology. Many challenges were dealt with through redefinition and ambiguity.

For example, Deng Xiaoping adroitly redefined "workers" to include intellectuals, arguing that while they worked with their minds and not their muscles, they were still workers.

Jiang Zemin went a step further by accepting capitalists into the Communist Party through his "Three Represents" theory, which says the party represents advanced social productive forces.