This article was originally intended for publication in a forthcoming issue of the Chinese weekly journal Outlook. The author wrote the article in English,  which was then translated into Chinese by a member of Fudan University (Shanghai, China).
 The article attempts to capture one aspect of the project entitled "East Asian perspectives on political legitimacy (EAPL)"—a project principally  coordinated by Professor Melissa Williams of Toronto University, with the collaboration of scholars of various backgrounds from universities in East Asia  and North America (including Keio University, Japan). The project's ultimate aim is to cultivate the field of comparative political theory, though primarily  focusing on East Asian intellectual traditions.
 As part of this project, a workshop was held at Fudan University on 1-2 May 2010. It was the first in a series of workshops to be organized under the  EAPL project. Subsequent workshops are expected to take place in Singapore (August 2010), Seoul (June 2011), Hong Kong (August 2011), Tokyo  (December 2011) and Toronto (February 2012).
 Since the first workshop was held in China, the papers and discussions naturally focused (though not exclusively) on Chinese politics and intellectual  traditions, with particular emphasis on the relevance or irrelevance of deliberative politics—the title of the workshop was "The cultural sources of  deliberative politics in East Asia". 
 A couple of weeks after the Shanghai workshop, the author was asked by Professor Deng Zhenglai of Fudan University to write an article for Outlook  on Chinese politics. Thus the article is an attempt to link the author’s views on Chinese politics with his account of what had taken place at the  workshop.