Abstract: It’s necessary to define a proper time range for the political system reform, in which historical opportunities for reform would surface. This is a time when all the opportunities for reform might be easily missed, but it is also a critical period for grasping these opportunities. In view of the demands of social development, the political system reform could proceed in two steps: first, implementing the political reform of neoauthoritarianism; and second, carrying out a systematical democratic reform. The reform of neoauthoritarianism is not merely an official enterprise, but is increasingly becoming a common cause for the people. Citizen participation are needed in all these endeavors, including constructing the community selfgovernance system and democracy at the grassroots level, the corporate governance in public institutions, cultivating a civil society, developing civil freedom, practicing social supervision, constructing a new relationship between the limited government and an increasingly active society, promoting legislative and judiciary democracy, and enhancing consociational democracy. All of these reforms are central to the neoauthoritarian reform. As a necessary transition to democratic reform, the neoauthoritarian reform, by its very nature, requires cooperation between the government and the people for mutual progress. Only when both the government and the people seize the opportunity for neoauthoritarian reform, can this reform be complete and secure a good transition to modernization and democratization.

Key words:  political system reform, historical opportunity for reform, neoauthoritarian reform, democratic reform