Western liberal democracy and its adaptive discourse system have gradually been in harmony with each other since the end of World War II because of a complete set of polity narratives about the core institutional arrangements of representative democracy based on the trinity of parliament, election, and political parties. Meanwhile, liberty has replaced equality as the core normative value so the fundamental purpose of democratic politics has been defined as to defend individual freedom and liberty. The success of Western democracy and its discourse system lie in the mutual complementary relationship between liberal democracy in an ontological sense, and representative democracy in the sense of polity (or regime type). In order to be in consistence with the people’s democracy in an ontological sense, participatory democracy in the sense of “political way” (Zhengdao) should be a major thrust of China’s political reform.