Democracy should not be a U.S.-made Coca-Cola that tastes the same everywhere in the world, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Friday, stressing that there is not a fixed model for democracy.
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Your anecdote is noted but what your anecdote claims is flatly contradicted by data.
I agree it is not a liberal democracy but I don’t think we mean the same thing by that.
Western liberal democracy is to serve the interests of capital and evidently that’s what it does.
Socialist democracy is to serve the interests of the people and according to poll after poll of Chinese people that’s what it is doing.
In terms of the machinery of democracy the data also is in high accordance with the claim that it features a high degree of integrity, data points I outlined above.
It’s true the CPC controls it’s membership but
(1) fully a third of elected officials are independent and many from the other parties for special interests
and (2) within the CPC faction system we see voices in the CPC ranging from Maoists to neoliberals so it’s not performing this function of limiting political voice as you claim but are you saying the 2-party system of the west doesn’t feature the same ideological limits? And in fact we see a much narrower political discourse in the west so clearly the limits imposed by the western liberal democracy 2-party system is actually performing that filter function aggressively than the CPC does,
and (3) a very large fraction of the population are members whereas in the west such a tiny fraction of the population are direct participants in democracy so even on the topic of membership of the CPC the Chinese model features far more inclusion than you see in the west.
The role of decentralizing power to the local and provincial levels is also very important in this discussion since it’s such a large and populous country. Like I’d agree at the national level the Will of the people is somewhat indirect since there is a hierarchical system where you vote at level A and level A elects level B so at the top of this pyramid Democratic voice is indirect but the politics that matters are mostly at level A and the consensus model of politics means that the indirect influence upon the top of the hierarchy is still much more meaningful than the pretense of the 2-party system where Teo neoliberal parties fight culture wars in lieu of politics.
It’s not a perfect democracy but it’s actually a very good one.
I think (2) is an important point by the way, when you wring your hands about the potential for CPC membership to limit political diversity you need to square that with the reality that you see much more political diversity within their system than the western liberal model even just within the CPC and ignoring the important role of elected independents.
I think you guys are both agreeing with the same point but getting tangled up on the semantics. NateNate’s core point is that Western democracy focuses on elections and Chinese democracy focuses on responding to the needs of people. He says that Westerners don’t consider China to be a democracy because they only look at the quality of the elections (the process) and not the results (the outcome). He’s not saying that China is not democratic, he’s saying that Westerners are dogmatically trained to look only at the process.
Your core argument seems to be that the Chinese system is procedurally democratic enough to count as a democracy is not contradictory to his point. However, I think it’s kinda funny that by focusing in on the process, this whole debate is kind of supporting his point that Westerners tend to think more of the process than the outcome.
No that’s not my point.
My point is that the process used in China is a Democratic one which features high procedural integrity not just good outcomes but also very directly in the procedural sense.
People VOTE for their POLITICAL REPRESENTATIVES in China in ELECTIONS.
Can I be more clear?
Xi isn’t directly elected, and I think westerners fixate on this, but neither is the British Prime Minister or German Chancellor. But just as the foundation of western democracy is elected representatives to parliament the foundation of Chinese democracy is elected representatives to congresses.
When I say China is a democracy I am not talking about vibes. I mean PEOPLE VOTE IN ELECTIONS AND THOSE ELECTIONS DETERMINE PUBLIC POLICY.
Goddamn.
Like, sure the exact process and the degree of integrity varies by province and city since the devolved model of power means there are in fact variety of models in China and so it’s difficult to make grand sweeping statements but Chinese democracy is a real thing not just some vibes based sentiment or some “according my obscure Marxist theory” thing. I am talking about the very obvious and surface level procedural sense, casting a ballot into a box, as well as the deeper sense.
The foundation of Chinese democracy is the people’s congresses. These are elected by the people. These then elect the next higher level in a tiered system right to the top. It becomes indirect at the higher levels but the system also tends to decentralize power since the bottom rung actually controls the top and so tends to vote in a manner that devolves power instead of centralizing it, which is profoundly democratic and responsive.
It is a different model than what we have in the west but it is not less Democratic in the procedural sense. It’s not just vibes. The people elect their representatives and their representatives elect actual government.
It’s not even very different anyway, compared to say the Westminster system where the people elect parliament and parliament then elect the executive. It’s just scaled by another tier or two.
I understand this point, and what I am saying is that the claim that “Chinese people use elections to enact political change and express political will” is false.
China has elections. They are show elections that do not actually effect any change. Elections are not widely advertised and when it is, it’s more pomp and ceremony than actual serious political contention. There are no political debates. Candidates sometimes don’t even make their positions publicly known. Maybe they’ll write something on their WeChat page and that’s it. You show up, mark candidates off on a ballot, and deposit it in a box. It has the trappings of an election but it isn’t a vehicle for political change.
If you spend some time in China or read Chinese media, you’ll understand that the primary ways that citizens get what they want from politicians are much more direct:
All of these are effective and you can call it Chinese-style democracy in action. China doesn’t use elections. It’s too wasteful. They’re not going to spend millions on political campaigns, election security and all those frills when the informal system works way better.
Why are they wasting millions on these fake show elections? That would make even less sense. Have you considered that the fact that millions of elections are held every year actually has something to do with the government being responsive to complaints? People complain about shit in the US all the time in the same ways, and nothing gets fixed. Maybe not spending billions on campaign ads etc actually makes the elections better. If anything the idea that elections are “for show” seems more applicable to the US since no matter who gets elected things don’t get better, and the extremely expensive spectacle of the election itself is the only thing that matters.
For what it’s worth, I know that your position is closer to the truth than the OP’s. I never did understand how promotions work, though: is it all by relationships or are there quantitative/qualitative evaluation metrics to decide who to promote?
You’re correct that this is exactly what I’m trying to say. It’s a difference between the Chinese/socialist definition of democracy and the Western definition.
see FrogFraction’s response to the same comment