It took decades for England to form a constitutional monarchy from the bourgeois revolution in 1640 to the Glorious Revolution in 1688, and it took even longer for this system to mature. It took nearly 90 years for the American Revolution to stabilize the new system from the beginning of the Revolutionary War in 1775 to the end of the Civil War in 1865. From the bourgeois revolution in 1789 to the fall of the Second Empire and the establishment of the Third Republic in 1870, France experienced many restorations and repeated contests, which took more than 80 years. In Japan, the Meiji Restoration began in 1868, but it was not until the end of World War II that the current system was formed.

——Speech at the Seminar on Comprehensively Deepening Reform for Major Leading Cadres at the Provincial and Ministerial Levels to Study and Implement the Spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee (February 17, 2014)

Further reading:

Is the maturity of a system the result of an overnight mutation, or is it a gradual endogenous evolution? When the Western world sells its institutional model and values to the world with the cheer of "the end of history", they just forget that their system is not what it is today, but has experienced decades or even hundreds of years of games, turmoil and changes.

Developed countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, France, and Japan are all the same. In France, for example, the French Revolution of 1789 shouted the slogan "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity", but after the success of the revolution, these goals were not achieved in one step. During the Jacobin dictatorship, 1,376 people were executed in Paris alone in just 48 days, from the adoption of the Decree of the Pastoral Moon on June 10, 1794, to the Thermidorian coup d'état on July 27, 1794. Historians describe it this way: "In a pool of blood, the passion of the masses is gone...... The revolution devoured its own children. "In the 150 years since the Revolution, the history of France has been torn between revolution and restoration, republic and imperialism, democracy and autocracy. Some scholars have shown that between 1800 and 1949, there were eight revolutions in France, and it was not until after the Second World War that it was truly stabilized. The long process of institutional stabilization in France shows that it takes time for the system to mature. Another example is the United States, after winning the Revolutionary War, it was more like a loose "confederacy" between states than a "federation" with internal cohesion. It was not until the Lincoln administration won the Civil War and defended the unity of the United States by force that the foundation was laid for the United States as a complete political entity. It took nearly 90 years before and after.

Xi Jinping draws conclusions from the history of the development of the system in the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Japan and other countries that the maturity of the system is not an overnight effort, but requires a process of gradual improvement. This naturally leads to a revelation for China's future: the development of China's institutional system will also require a process of gradual improvement and maturity, just like that of Western countries.

Xi Jinping has also repeatedly stressed that each country's political system is unique, "the result of long-term development, gradual improvement, and endogenous evolution on the basis of the country's historical heritage, cultural traditions, and economic and social development." By telling the history of institutional changes in some developed countries, he revealed to people the internal logic of institutional maturity, and also showed us a kind of historical thinking and historical vision.