Open and subterranean left-and-right debates have been raging on Mao Zedong's legacy and the direction of China's future. Although respectable, the debates seem simplistic. Their common focus is Chairman Mao's place in history. The views range from the various degrees of retention (the left-leaning views) to the rejection (the right-leaning views) of the revolutionary Mao. In extreme cases, the left wants to keep the practice of revolutionary Mao in as pristine a state as possible, and the right wants to eradicate the practice of revolutionary Mao as thoroughly as possible. The net result is that theoretically each would lead to a different future for China.

Both views are mistaken, because they, in their own ways, ignore the dynamics of history in its entirety. The left ignores the historical legitimacy and necessity of "reform and opening-up" as the actual given, and the right ignores the historical legitimacy and necessity of "socialist revolution" as the actual precondition. Both suffer from being too theoretical and are thus removed from reality.

The realistic way of having such a debate is to accept the actual given in history. The actual given is the two stages of the formation of the People's Republic of China since the founding of the Communist Party of China in 1921. The first stage was the formative revolutionary stage led by Mao. The second stage, beginning in 1978, is the "reform and opening-up" stage initiated by Deng Xiaoping. Both sides of the left-right debate would want to keep the two stages separate by emphasizing one while downgrading the other.