Three Represents
At the 16th National Congress, Jiang introduced a third kind of civilization, political civilization, along with "the important thoughts of the Three Represents". According to Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a former advisor to the Chinese government, the idea was "three interrelated objectives — material civilization, spiritual civilization, and political civilization — and one unifying mechanism, Three Represents. The three civilizations were the intended ends, and the important thought of Three Represents was the chosen means." There has been talk of introducing a fourth civilization, but nothing has come of it yet. A proposed fourth civilization, social civilization, is linked to Hu's concept of Harmonious Socialist Society. According to Lie Zhongjie, the deputy director of the Central Research Office, "the outcome of building 'society' in a general sense ... is 'social civilization' ... it is a social civilization in the broad sense, transcending the [other] three civilizations". However, social civilization has not been elevated to the same level as the other three kinds of civilization. There are a number of proponents in China for "ecological civilization", "an unsurprising development given the growing awareness and official recognition of China's pressing environmental issues."