People’s democracy in China
People’s democracy in China
The false discourse of Chinese authoritarianism
Many years ago, in the context of the awakening of consciousness in the United States from 1966 to 1972, stimulated by the black power movement and the student anti-war movement, I became aware that perceptions of truth and right are shaped by social and cultural context. Investigating the philosophical implications of this fact, I ultimately arrived to understand that understandings that transcend one’s social starting point can be attained through sustained cross-horizon encounter or cross-civilizational dialogue, in which commitment to truth is the highest desire. In the practice of this epistemological method, I came to appreciate that one must begin by seeking to understand how people of other horizons and civilizations define themselves; and only on this foundation can the intellectual and moral defects of the other be criticized.
The emergence of China as a world power has provoked debate and commentary in the United States, which often has included an unsubstantiated claim that China is an authoritarian country. Yet the leadership of China claims that the Asian giant has developed “whole-process people’s democracy.” So the question is placed before us, is China authoritarian, or does it practice a type of democracy unknown to us in the West, a form of people’s democracy?
In accordance with my longstanding epistemological method, I propose that we begin by taking seriously what the Chinese leadership has to say on the question, holding back our criticisms of defects until we have spent a reasonable amount of time listening. Fortunately, in an age of English-language websites developed by governments and political parties all over the world, we do not have to learn Chinese and travel to China to spend some time listening.
The English Edition of the Qiushi Journal, a bimonthly review of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, has published two articles in 2023 that are relevant to the issue at hand. Namely, “Developing Whole-Process People’s Democracy and Ensuring the People Run the Country,” by the Core Theoretical Study Team of the CPC Leadership Group for the Working Bodies of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, published in the July August 2023 issue; and “Whole-Process People’s Democracy Is the Defining Feature of Socialist Democracy,” by Cheng Tongshun, professor at the Zhou Enlai School of Government at Nankai University and a research fellow at the Nankai University Base of the Research Center for the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in Tianjin, published in the March April 2023 edition.
I attempt in today’s commentary a formulation of the key concepts and practices of people’s democracy in China, drawing from these two sources, as a starting point for our understanding of the practice of democracy in China; followed by further considerations.
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Xi Jinping and Whole-Process People’s Democracy
Following the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) of 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping undertook a comprehensive analysis of China’s practice of socialist democracy, which led him to put forth the concept of a new stage in people’s democracy in China, a stage of “whole-process people’s democracy.” The new stage gives greater emphasis to the participation of the people in the political process, and it seeks to improve consultation with the people in the decision-making process. Thus, whole-process people’s democracy is based in the structures of the people’s democracy that were developed by Chinese socialism since 1949, but it deepens the participatory and consultative practices, advancing people’s democracy to a new stage. The principles of whole-process people’s democracy were most fully elucidated by Xi at a conference of the Party in October 2021 and were ratified by the Party in November 2021 at the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee.
In Chinese people’s democracy, power belongs to the people. The people exercise state power through people’s congresses that function at five different levels.
The foundation of the system of people’s congresses is established at the local level. Local people’s congresses are elected on the basis of the principles of universal suffrage, one vote for each person, multiple candidates, secret ballots, and direct election of the deputies to the local congresses. In the most recent elections, one billion voters (of a total nationwide population of 1.4 billion) elected 2.62 million deputies to county and township congresses.
An additional 0.15 million (that is, 150,000) deputies were elected through indirect elections to the four higher levels of people’s congresses, in which the deputies are elected by the previously elected deputies. The highest level, the National People’s Congress, which functions through its Standing Committee, exercises state legislative power for the nation, that is, for the People’s Republic of China.
Deputies to people’s congresses at all levels are expected to faithfully represent the interests and will of the people in exercising state power. There is structural support for this expectation, inasmuch as deputies do not need money or campaign donations to be elected.
Local congresses formulate laws and regulations for their level of jurisdiction, including laws and regulations relevant to social and economic development and other issues of vital interest to the people. Thus, China has primary-level self-governance, which consists of systems of village self-governance, resident self-governance, and employee congresses. With the leadership and support of primary-level CPC organizations, the people can manage their own affairs themselves. This system gives people real power, not merely nominal power, including the power to decide with respect to economic management, local security, fire safety, community sanitation, marriage, family planning, and cultural activities.
The system of people’s congresses is central to the process of people’s democracy in China. The system of people’s congresses is the most important means and the highest form through which the people of China exercise power and run their country. It is a system that has been evolving for more than sixty years, reaching a more advanced stage in the present period. It is a system that empowers the people to promote national economic development and share in the gains of economic development.
At all levels, the people’s congresses have developed practices of consultations with respect to pending policies and legislation and matters related to social and economic development. People from all walks of life are consulted extensively, with the goal of attaining the widest possible consensus. The people’s congresses and their standing committees consult with community-level entities and social organizations; the consultative process includes conferences, symposiums, hearings, discussions, online activities, and public opinion surveys.
The Communist Party of China leads a coalition of political parties who cooperate in making proposals to the people’s congresses. The CPC has a vested interest in maintaining the coalition; it therefore has developed practices of consultation with its partner parties, ensuring that the interests of the partners in the coalition are addressed. This system of CPC-led multi-party coalition leads to norms of cooperation, consultation, and consensus among the political parties. It is a wise system, born from Chinese political practice.
An important principle of the Chinese political process is that of the patriotic united front, also known as democratic centralism. Once decisions are made through the comprehensive process of consultation seeking cooperation and consensus, all citizens support the decision. As was expressed in a 2020 article in Qiushi, democratic socialism “means first of all, making sure that people's diverse ideas, demands and wishes are heard as widely as possible, then identifying and bringing together the constructive ones, and then taking rational and workable decisions to satisfy them.”
China has a system of regional ethnic autonomy, unified under a single state, granting regional autonomy in the exercise of state power. The system permits the people of ethnic groups to run their own affairs.
China’s whole-process people’s democracy has developed from China’s historic struggles for socialism, socialist democracy, political stability, economic modernization, and prosperity. It is rooted in a well-developed framework of institutions, including the system of people’s congresses, the system of CPC-led multi-party cooperation and political consultation, regional ethnic autonomy, and local self-governance. It is further supported by the norm of a patriotic united front, which enables the uniting of all forces and the mobilization of resources for collective endeavors.
Whole process people’s democracy is a balanced system that combines electoral democracy and consultative democracy. The stage of whole process people’s democracy has emphasized the refining of the channels of consultative democracy. Deputies of the people’s congresses listen to the opinions of all stakeholders, so that every piece of legislation has the support of the people.
During the stage of whole process people’s democracy, which is an improved form of people’s democracy, China has made great strides in improving consultative democracy, clarifying ethnic and religious questions, ending absolute poverty, and achieving a moderate level of prosperity. It continues its efforts to ensure the access of the people to childcare, education, employment, medical services, elderly care, housing, and social assistance.
As Cheng writes, “Through whole-process people’s democracy, we have truly ensured that development is for and by the people and that its fruits are also shared by the people. We have fully guaranteed that it is the people who run the country.”
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Further considerations
Whole process people’s democracy in China is not a show. You will not find two candidates or two parties hurling insults at one another and disputing the election results.
I first learned of the alternative process of people’s democracy in Cuba during the 1990s. Prior to my first trip to Cuba in 1993, I was not aware that there were elections in Cuba, inasmuch as neither the attackers nor the defenders of Cuba talked about its political system, and Cuba herself was oriented to defending the right of each nation to develop its own political system rather than defending the virtues of her own. When I became aware of the shocking fact of elections in Cuba, during an interchange between FLACSO and U.S. sociologists at the University of Havana, I became most interested in its implications. Who gets to vote? What authority do the elected persons have? It seemed to me that the answers to these questions were fundamental to any debate about Cuba.
It took me a couple of years to track down the responses to these questions, but I ultimately arrived to the conclusion that Cuba has a system of people’s democracy that is more advanced than the representative democracies of the Western nations, because it makes far more likely that the interests and demands of the people will be addressed, to the extent that material resources permit. The Cuban political system is characterized by local nomination assemblies to establish two or more candidates in each voting district for delegates to the municipal assemblies, elected in secret balloting by citizens, who exercise the right to vote with a participation rate of 85% to 95%; and indirect elections of deputies to provincial and national assemblies by previously elected delegates of municipal assemblies, with the participation of mass organizations in the nomination process, and with the final ratification of the candidates by citizens in a direct vote. The National Assembly of People’s Power is the highest legal authority in the nation; it elects the highest levels of the executive and judicial branches of the government.
The Cuban Constitution establishes the Communist Party of Cuba as the guiding force that leads the nation. Its authority, however, is moral and educational, not legal. The Party must submit its recommendations to the National Assembly of People’s Power, elected directly and indirectly by the people without the participation of the Party. The National Assembly alone has the power to decide. The Party continues to be the leading force of the nation because of its moral authority before the people. But the Party could lose its moral authority before the people and thus its capacity to guide the nation. The Party therefore works hard to prevent this from happening, by defending the sovereignty of the nation and the interests of the people, and by responding to the demands and claims of the people.
I have found that the system of people’s democracy in Cuba works well. It leads to informed public discourse, national consensus, and political stability.
As a result of my experiences in Cuba, I find credible the discourse of the Communist Party of China with respect to its system of people’s democracy. It seems to me that the stage of whole-process people’s democracy is an intelligent modification introduced by Xi Jinping, in that it prevents the ossification of the system of people’s power, which likely would emerge as a normal tendency.
The structures and processes of people’s democracies in the world stand in contrast to the decadence of Western representative democracies, which are racked by confusion and division. The holding of elections that are contests among competing political parties—who must disseminate their messages through advertising—creates a structural inducement for candidates to pretend to defend the people and to make campaign promises to the people, but to defend in reality the interests of the major campaign contributors on whom they depend. Such built-in deceptions of politicians now stand exposed before the people, giving rise to the legitimation crisis of representative democracy and the political parties, which is giving rise to fascism. In the context of this corrupt process, the authentic voice of the people must be found and expressed, which only could be accomplished by leaders who speak with a genuine voice and who adhere strictly to the highest rules of representative democracies.
A step in the emergence from corruption to authentic political discourse would be to cease and desist in the bashing of China as authoritarian. China’s process of people’s democracy ought to be respected as an authentic expression of the historic struggle for democracy and modernization by the Chinese people. And it ought to be respected in accordance with the principle of respect for the sovereignty of nations, proclaimed by the United Nations and the peoples of the world.
An authentic political discourse in the United States ought to propose respect for the sovereignty of China and to seek cooperation and mutually beneficial trade with China, as an important step toward attending to the difficulties that confront the North American republic.
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