Yijiang Ding, a professor of political science at Okanagan University College in Canada, analyses the changes in the intellectual discourse on democracy in China during the last decade of the 20th century. He concludes that a major change has occurred in the discussions on the relationship between state and society that is transforming the Chinese political scene. Conceptually, much of the discourse focuses on the dualism between state and society, which he views as a departure from the Leninist concept of democratic centralism, that is the Party-state, as well as from the traditional Chinese view of state and society.