While all eyes are on the personnel changes to be announced at the 17th congress of the Chinese Communist Party to be opened October 15, equally important are the changes to be made to the party constitution. According to Xinhua, the official press agency, “the 17th party congress will appropriately revise the party constitution according to the changing situations and tasks.” The question is whether the current party leader, Hu Jintao, will be added to the pantheon of China’s communist leaders. However, before a new leader can be added to the communist pantheon, he must first make a contribution to communist theory. Thus, Mao Zedong is hailed for his “thought,” Deng Xiaoping for his “theory” and Jiang Zemin for his “important thought of the three represents.” The revised constitution, Xinhua said, will retain the thinking of all major figures in the communist pantheon but would also “reflect the major strategic thoughts the central leadership has set forth” since the last congress in 2002, “such as the scientific development theory.” Of course, because Hu has been the party leader since 2002, the development of such a theory must be attributable to him. China’s concept of “scientific development” is, in a sense, what the rest of the world calls “sustainable development.” According to Hu, scientific development makes economic and social development “people-oriented, comprehensive, balanced and sustainable.” But the addition of the “scientific development” theory to the party charter does not in itself mean that Hu will be put on the same level as Mao, Deng and Jiang. After all, Hu has only been leader for five years. It seems a tad early to put him in the party constitution. It would seem more appropriate to wait five more years, when he steps down after running the country for a decade, to add him to the pantheon. After all, what if, heaven forbid, he should fall down on the job in his second term? But Hu does seem to be paving the way by depicting himself as a theoretician. In June, he gave a speech to the Central Party School in which he coined a new term, the Four Steadfasts—sometimes also known as the Four Insistencies. These refer to holding steadfast to the emancipation of the mind, the reform and opening policy, scientific development and social harmony. Actually, as thinking evolves to suit changing circumstances, it is inevitable that contradictions arise between contemporary thinking and thoughts that might have been appropriate half a century ago. Thus, Mao had insisted on giving top priority to class struggle, and Deng decided to put economic development before all else. And the current leadership, of course, prefers to emphasize harmony rather than struggle. However, the Communists have a way of harmonizing such conflicts. The party constitution, for example, defines Mao Zedong Thought not as his individual thinking but as the collective wisdom of the party. Thus, as Deng indicated, Mao thought could continue to develop even after Mao’s death. The party constitution says that Mao Zedong Thought was created by “the Chinese Communists with Comrade Mao Zedong as their chief representative” and integrates Marxism-Leninism with the concrete situation in China. Similarly, Deng Xiaoping theory is attributed not just to one man but to “the Chinese Communists with Comrade Deng Xiaoping as the chief representative.” And the “three represents,” while having been put forward by Jiang, is described as “the crystallized, collective wisdom of the Communist Party of China.” So if and when Hu is added to the pantheon, his contribution, too, will no doubt be ascribed to the party’s collective wisdom. But the party cannot simply keep extending its roof to cover ever more theories, because some of them are contradictory and others are simply obstacles to further development. Mao’s theory of class struggle is clearly no longer suitable for today’s world. Similarly, the four cardinal principles, enunciated by Deng and enshrined in the party constitution, will have to be removed sooner or later. These principles call on communists to uphold the socialist road, uphold the people’s democratic dictatorship, uphold leadership by the Communist Party, and uphold Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. They are a huge obstacle to democratic development since they mean that the party will never give up power or even be willing to share power. Now that the Communists describe themselves as the “ruling party” and not as a “revolutionary party,” they should allow for the theoretical possibility, however remote, that they may not have a monopoly on power forever. Getting rid of the four cardinal principles is needed as a first step.