The Tiananmen Vision Democratic Choices After reading all of China's writings about democracy from the past hundred years, we might ask the philosophers and activists, What democratic institutions do you favor? Do you want a two-house legislature? Do you want the administration to have the power? Do you want a supreme court with the right to interpret the constitution? Do you want a criminal-procedure law, which allows the presumption of innocence? What is your institutional idea of democracy? You have this wonderful vision of democracy, but what are the institutions? Chinese democratic thinkers from the beginning to the present never discuss concrete institutions in their writings. I think part of the reason for this is that they are still trying to open the system, and so at this point it would be ridiculous to talk about the fine-tuning of democratic institutions. The Spirit of Democracy The Soviet Model The Constitutional Structure