“Most of the great democratic theorists in the West, from Montesquieu to Schumpeter, do not agree developing democracy for the democracy’s sake, and they believe that democracy is a procedure, an institutional arrangement and a game rule, characterized by ‘limited participation’ rather than ‘unlimited participation'”.
“Don’t people in China wish to live in a democratic country?” This is a question on Quora, a social media platform. Is it true? I’ll begin from answering it.
How should we define a democratic country? The term “Democracy” here, could refer to the western political system featuring “one man, one vote”, representative system, or multi-party system. According to this definition, China is not a democratic country. But, does that really mean there is no democracy in China? Of course not.
Every Chinese citizen knows that replacing autocracy with democracy is a historical process. A consensus on whether democracy is needed has been reached in China long ago. What the country is exploring is what kind of democracy will be more conducive to the nation’s sustainable and sound development.
Furthermore, there are many types of democracy; the western version is just one of them. China has its own – socialist democracy.
The socialist democracy means the democratic rights enjoyed by the broad masses of the workers, peasants, intellectuals, and all the people who admire their socialist motherland. The essence of socialist democracy is that people act as the masters of their country.
In order to guarantee the people run the country and governance, China has developed a series of supporting political systems: the system of people ‘s congresses, the system of multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the CPC (Communist Party of China), the system of regional ethnic autonomy, and the system of community-level self-governance, featuring distinctive Chinese characteristics.
Meanwhile, China has made substantial progress to address major issues, including replacing the life-long tenure of officials with limited terms; striving to establish a decision-making system and maximizing the transparency of decision-making; promoting the rule of law, law-based governance and exercise of state power; establishing and refining a multilevel system for scrutiny and one for open administration system in various areas
As for the question: Why doesn’t China adopt the Western-style political system?
China is a country with a land of over 9.6 million square kilometers and a population with 56 ethnic groups. The Chinese believe that blindly copying the political system of other countries will never work at home. They will never adapt to the country. Each country is unique in its political system, which is determined by its people and has been developed and gradually refined over a long period of time on the basis of their historical heritage, culture traditions, as well as social and economic development.
And the question: Why not conduct competitive elections?
It is not true that China does not conduct competitive elections. At the current stage, China adopts an electoral system combining direct and indirect elections.
According to the State Council, “Deputies to the people’s congresses of cities not divided into districts, municipal districts, counties, autonomous counties, townships, ethnic minority townships and towns are elected directly by their constituencies. Deputies to the NPC [National People’s Congress] and the people’s congresses of the provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government, cities divided into districts, and autonomous prefectures are elected by the people’s congresses at the next lower level.” These elections are all competitive.
Regardless of electoral democracy’s advantages, including transparency and competitiveness, it has flaws that should not be ignored. Electoral democracy follows the rule that the minority is subordinate to the majority. Although everyone has the right to vote, only some voters’ appeals can be heard.
The solution is to combine electoral democracy with consultative democracy.
Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, China has advanced extensive, multilevel and institutionalized development of consultative democracy, and has adopted a coordinated approach to promoting consultations carried out by political parties, people’s congresses, government departments, people’s organizations, communities, and social organizations. In this way, a democratic political system combining electoral democracy and consultative democracy has been established.
I also wish to quote professor Zhang Weiwei’s words, “Most of the great democratic theorists in the West, from Montesquieu to Schumpeter, do not agree developing democracy for the democracy’s sake, and they believe that democracy is a procedure, an institutional arrangement and a game rule, characterized by ‘limited participation’ rather than ‘unlimited participation'”.