With the increasingly frequent exchanges between China and other countries in politics and diplomacy,political terminology,as a barometer to reflect China's political orientation,is playing an invaluable role.Therefore,the English translation of political terminology is crucial for China's political diplomacy.Under the framework of Adaptation Theory,this paper is intended for the translators to follow the adaptation theory during the translating of political terms.In the study of the English translation of the political terms in the Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping,four basic translation methods are discovered:"literal translation", "literal translation with annotation" "free translation" and "free translation with annotation" which can be applied to the translation of other political discourse genres.