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CNN's China claims its authoritarian one-party system is a democracy -- and one that works better than the US says:

In his keynote speech, Huang Kunming, the ruling Communist Party's propaganda tsar, extolled China's so-called "whole-process people's democracy" -- a concept put forward by Chinese leader Xi Jinping -- describing it as a "true democracy that works."

Huang later expounded on the theory, confusingly insisting it "integrates process-oriented democracy with results-oriented democracy, procedural democracy with substantive democracy, direct democracy with indirect democracy, and people's democracy with the will of the state."

In tandem to the event, China's cabinet, the State Council, released Saturday with fanfare a white paper titled "China: Democracy That Works."

"There is no fixed model of democracy; it manifests itself in many forms. Assessing the myriad political systems in the world against a single yardstick and examining diverse political structures in monochrome are in themselves undemocratic," the 13,000-word document said.

A very important document and guideline for political thought in China is Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and it is likely that public statements by Chinese officials will be at the very least consistent with Xi Jinping Thought, and likely refer to it directly or indirectly.

Question: What exactly is China's "whole-process people's democracy"? In what ways does it function "democratically" based on traditional definitions?

The term seems fairly new, is there a clear enough understanding of what it is and by what mechanism it works to compare it to more traditional forms and understandings of democracy?

uhoh
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    Not a full answer, but the full text of the white paper referenced is at http://www.news.cn/english/2021-12/04/c_1310351231.htm and is helpful in explaining it. – ohwilleke Dec 10 '21 at 02:47
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    companion question: Did the Biden administration have a working definition of democracy when it chose which countries to invite to its "democracy summit"? – uhoh Dec 10 '21 at 02:53
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    Related question on elections in Cuba: https://politics.stackexchange.com/q/844/130. The answers there probably apply to the elections of local People's Congresses in the People's Republic of China as well. – gerrit Dec 10 '21 at 12:16
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    Why is there now a tag named xi-jinping-thought ? – CGCampbell Dec 10 '21 at 12:56
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    Please clarify what is meant by "traditional definitions". Democracy has meant different things historically. Perhaps you rather mean the modern western meaning of democracy? – jkej Dec 10 '21 at 16:07
  • @jkej In this particular case there is no need of nor benefit to pre-constraining the question to one specific and arbitrary definition of my choosing. I've left it plural to allow answer authors some degree flexibility, and so far two have done an excellent job writing considered and well-received answers already. – uhoh Dec 10 '21 at 21:13
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    Okay, that's fine. But I'm still trying to wrap my head around what "traditional" refers to. Supposedly, you want to exclude non-traditional definitions. What would that be? – jkej Dec 11 '21 at 00:24
  • @jkej recent, very modern definitions, like those arising in the last five years in China. Perhaps there's a better word for "old and at least somewhat widespread or accepted" that works better here, I'm certainly open to suggestions! – uhoh Dec 11 '21 at 00:36
  • Analogy: a band of wolves criticizing a bear for not being a wolf; to which the bear responds with no, I'm a wolf, but better: I'm a big brown fluffy wolf. So, should we now think about what is a "brown fluffy wolf", and if the bear is indeed a wolf? International (and realistic) consensus is that CCP is not democratic. – Neinstein Dec 11 '21 at 01:01

4 Answers4

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Elections in the People's Republic of China are based on a hierarchical electoral system, whereby local People's Congresses are directly elected. All higher levels of People's Congresses up to the National People's Congress (NPC), the national legislature, are indirectly elected by the People's Congress of the level immediately below.

In other words, while there are elections in which Chinese citizens vote at the local level, higher tiers of government are chosen from elections in which only those elected at the lower tier, and not citizens ( as is the norm in federal democracies such as USA and India ), vote. Thus, the influence of the Chinese public decreases the higher the tier of government is, being virtually none at the national level.

Further, all electoral candidates are largely determined by the Chinese Communist Party. Thus, there is a lack of a democratic opposition which is integral to the functioning of any democracy.

JERRY_XLII
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    The President of the United States is also indirectly elected. – gerrit Dec 10 '21 at 12:15
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    @gerrit That is what is usually pulled out at this time. The difference, of course, is that we had two rather diametrically opposed candidate which the electoral college could choose. If this were China, the candidate(s) for President from which the Electoral College could choose would both have been chosen by ... oh, wait, never mind. – CGCampbell Dec 10 '21 at 13:01
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    @CGCampbell Technically, just as China has restictions on who can run for president, so does the United States. (Some) People just believe the United States restrictions are "fairer". – Ekadh Singh - Reinstate Monica Dec 10 '21 at 14:16
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    #JERRY_XLII Your last sentence needs some more sources, but the rest of it makes perfect sense. – Ekadh Singh - Reinstate Monica Dec 10 '21 at 14:18
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    As Jinping is both the President of China and the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, and all candidate for posts at all levels have to come from the CCP, there is inherently a lack of true democracy, in my opinion. If the US had laws that state that all candidate must come from the RNC and that the current President were also the Chair of the RNC, then the US would be in much the same position. If China were to amend its constitution and laws to allow candidates from non-State controlled parties, then the "West" would have less of an argument against China being a "true" democracy. – CGCampbell Dec 10 '21 at 14:47
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    @gerrit The President is the head of the executive, but the legislature ( i.e. Congress ) is directly elected. Even in Westminster System countries with a Prime Minister, the PM, who is the head of the executive, is indirectly elected ( though being directly elected as a Member of Parliament is a requirement ) as PM by the House of Commons ( or equivalent ), but the legislature itself is directly elected. In China, the NPC, which elects the President, is itself indirectly elected. Adding on to that as mentioned above, elections in China arent exactly free. – JERRY_XLII Dec 10 '21 at 15:19
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    @Kevin Sure, but the question is about how they play one on TV, right? For example Iran has direct elections for president (w/tightly controlled candidates & overrule by clerics). China seems to use the old USSR system. – Owen Reynolds Dec 10 '21 at 15:23
  • @gerrit Theoretically. The degree to which electors can vote contrary to the popular vote varies from state to state, though. – chepner Dec 10 '21 at 22:49
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    @EkadhSingh: 35 years of age is an entirely reasonable (if arbitrary) qualification for the leader of an entire country. Natural-born citizen is probably not fair by modern standards, but it still allows a fairly large swath of people with widely varying political affiliations to run, so I don't think it can be argued to seriously impair the US's democratic legitimacy. China, OTOH, basically says you can't run unless the CCP likes you, which is far less democratic. – Kevin Dec 10 '21 at 23:24
  • @Kevin, I'd say it's more democracy with Chinese characteristics. – Mark Dec 10 '21 at 23:36
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    There's an element of democracy in China because the party avoids putting in candidates up for election if they would be too unpopular. – JonathanReez Dec 11 '21 at 01:04
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    The US equivalent to the indirect system described here could be if citizens could only directly vote for city council. The elected city council would then get together and vote for the mayor. Then, all of the indirectly-elected mayors would get together and vote for the state legislature, who would then vote for the governor. The governors of all the states would then get together and vote for the lowest-level Federal offices. – Robert Columbia Dec 11 '21 at 15:02
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    @RobertColumbia Echoes of Britain’s parliamentary system: the public only votes for their local constituency MP, who then votes for the party leader (who becomes PM if the queen says so). The only other thing the Great British public can vote for is to throw the UK’s long-term economy into the toilet… – Dai Dec 11 '21 at 21:26
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    Candidates selected by the party is a much bigger non-democratic issue than indirect election is. Also the stuff they avoid mentioning: there is no real democracy without the freedom to criticize the government without fear of retaliation or punishment. Period. – RBarryYoung Dec 11 '21 at 22:22
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    As @RBarryYoung says, a true democracy requires free speech. Even if the public could vote on candidates, if those votes aren't informed choices because the government limits what information can be shared, then it's a rather limited form of democracy. – Acccumulation Dec 11 '21 at 23:02
  • I believe elections are also not universal. It's not that people everywhere vote regularly for the lowest-level officials. That is itself restricted and probably should be addressed ~ – Mike M Dec 12 '21 at 14:50
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    @CGCampbell wrote "...[the USA] had two rather diametrically opposed candidates which the electoral college could choose...". Although I understand your point, it's important to note that the Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates in the USA usually have much more in common than they do in opposition. Mass media, fringe media, social media, and the 2 *controlling* parties try very hard to make it look otherwise, but it's largely just political theatre. I'm not saying there aren't differences, but it's not like they were voting to choose between Bob Dylan and Rupert Murdoch. – End Anti-Semitic Hate Dec 13 '21 at 06:48
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This answer is inspired by Liza Tobin's essay "Xi’s Vision for Transforming Global Governance: A Strategic Challenge for Washington and Its Allies"Fn.1; I draw on no new knowledge or insight into China here.

With that said, we (Westerners) conventionally interpret of "democracy" as

The policies of a countries government are determined by the opinions of — and go to benefit — the majority of that country's residents.

As I argue below, this stands in contraposition to authoritarianism and colonialism. Western democracies believe they are democratic because they are not (typically) authoritarian; China believes it is democratic because it is not colonized.

Any government, even an extremely undemocratic one, has a "selectorate": a minimal set of stakeholders who must remain pleased for the government to stay in power. Democracy is thus a twofold condition: a democratic government must have some social technology to integrate the opinions of its selectorate, and it must ensure that the views of the selectorate remain representative of the populace as a whole.

Conventional Western democracies have a very strong and powerful tool for integrating the views of a large selectorate to produce coherent government policy: competitive elections. Using this tool, they are able to expand their selectorate to almost their entire population, so that a majority of the selectorate is guaranteed to represent the opinions of the populace.

Or so you'd think! The theory of the Overton window suggests that the true selectorate in Western democracies is not in fact the voters, but rather the "chattering classes" that help produce arguments to convince voters; the strong influence of money in politics then tends to artificially restrict the Overton Window, so that the selectorate is no longer representative of the populace.

Perhaps for this reason, the bogeyman for Western democracies is the tyrannical European monarchies of the 16th through 19th centuries, in which the small selectorate lead to strong restrictions on freedom of the press and freedom of conscience.

Conversely, without free elections, China has a very weak tool to integrate a small selectorate. The other answers discuss the Chinese electoral system thoroughly; in order to maintain power at the apex, all (all!) Xi Jinping (say) need do is placate his immediate subordinates.

Instead, the Chinese focus their efforts to maintain democracy on ensuring that this small selectorate is representative of the populace as a whole, a process they call "consultation." Roughly 7% of Chinese citizens is a member of the CCP and their professional advancement (even in non-political fields!) is strongly dependent on maintaining good status in the party. At the local level, party leaders value consensus amongst party members highly. So once the party leaders settle on a policy, citizens tend to coordinate their views to match (cf. Arendt on Gleichschaltung). At the same time, the party's tentacular reach into civil society and the business community allows it (in theory) unprecedented insight into emerging discontent, which it can then "head off at the pass".

The bogeyman for modern Chinese national thought is 19th century imperial subordination, in which the small selectorate (of foreign capitalist investors) was hardly representative the Chinese peasantry. Indeed, those investors' non-Chinese ethnicity almost guaranteed it! Unsurprisingly, Chinese democracy attempts to guard against this failure mode.

I leave it to you to judge whether the Chinese method is successful at developing democracy (cough cough Tibet cough cough) and — if successful — sustainably so.

Fn. 1: I was linked to Tobin's article by Tanner Greer essay "Where is the Communism in the Chinese Communist Party?", which answers a similar enough question that I feel obliged to link to it here.

JERRY_XLII
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Jacob Manaker
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    The Tanner Greer essay is excellent. Americans have a hard time understanding that Xi Jinping (for better or worse) seems to be a sincere Marxist. The cynical interpretation in the other answers reflects a similar inability to understand the CCP on its own terms, very much like someone on the autism spectrum with poor Theory of Mind. – Betterthan Kwora Dec 11 '21 at 15:52
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    Why do you say that most Chinese citizens are members of the Communist Party? From what I can tell, its official membership is around 95 million people., far from everyone in China. The very article that you linked talking about the importance of CCP membership for career advancement gives similar numbers for party membership. In fact, it suggests that it has been Xi who has made the membership requirements more stringent. – Obie 2.0 Dec 12 '21 at 05:45
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    @Obie2.0: Misremembered my source. I have corrected the post now; sorry! – Jacob Manaker Dec 12 '21 at 08:22
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It is, ultimately, a multi-tier representative ‘democratic’ system where each tier elects their representatives in the next higher tier. Public elections elect the local officials, who then are the ones who elect the next level of representation, and so on up to the national level.

This technically does fit the definition of a democracy, albeit very loosely. In practice though, the general public has effectively zero influence on politics because:

  • By definition, public influence decreases as you get higher and higher in the hierarchy.
  • China is a single-party state, and the CCP has near absolute control of who can actually run for election no matter what level of government you are talking about.

This is ultimately conceptually similar to how the USSR’s ‘soviet’ system worked, where local organizational units would have a local council, who would then send delegates to the next tier up, then that tier would send delegates to the next tier up and so on up to the national level. The key difference is that China’s system affords more control to the government about who could be elected at a given tier.

Rather interestingly, a vast majority of countries in the world today actually meet the bare minimum definition of a democracy, at least by how they define their own governmental processes. This includes countries nominally recognized as authoritarian states by most external observers, such as the DPRK or Venezuela. There are a small handful of absolute monarchies still hanging on (Saudi Arabia is the largest), and a couple of military dictatorships, but as a general rule it’s easier for a government to govern if they can make people think they are able to influence policy, hence ‘democratic’ rule has become the norm no matter how authoritarian the state actually is.

Austin Hemmelgarn
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    "China is a single-party state, and the CCP has near absolute control of who can actually run for election no matter what level of government you are talking about." By this measure, effectively single-party states like Oklahoma or California, and deep-red or deep-blue US municipalities are also not democratic. – Betterthan Kwora Dec 10 '21 at 21:33
  • How democratic a country is depends both on the influence of the people over who gets elected, and also on the power of the elected officials over public policy. Your answer fails to account for the latter. – Betterthan Kwora Dec 10 '21 at 21:36
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    @BetterthanKwora: I don't know how it works in Oklahoma, but in California, the candidate chooses the party which is listed next to them on the ballot. There's no gatekeeping; people deliberately choose to list themselves as Republicans or independents. If you want to call yourself a "Democrat," nobody can stop you from doing that, regardless of your policy positions. – Kevin Dec 10 '21 at 23:29
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    @BetterthanKwora Not sure if it’s intentional, but there appears to be a disconnect here in your understanding of the meaning of ‘single-party state’. ‘State‘ here is in the same sense as in ‘Secretary of State’, not the ‘province’ sense that most people in the US seem to assume it means, and the whole term is a standard term from political science referring to a ‘state’ where there is exactly one political party present because they actively eliminate all opposition. The PRC, the DPRK, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Eritrea, and SADR are all single-party states currently, as was the USSR historically. – Austin Hemmelgarn Dec 11 '21 at 13:51
  • Of course I understand that distinction. My point is that this is a reality at the level of municipalities and states in the US. It's also worth noting that the US was not a multiparty democracy at its founding, and that President Washington was concerned with its emergence. – Betterthan Kwora Dec 11 '21 at 14:13
  • Also worth noting: Mexico was dominated by the PRI from 1929 - 2000, but multiparty since then. Has that made it more democratic, more "of the people, by the people, for the people"? – Betterthan Kwora Dec 11 '21 at 14:22
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    @BetterthanKwora There is no restriction in California on who can run for office. A Republican is unlikely to win, but democracy doesn't mean that anyone can win an election; in fact, it means the opposite (in that unpopular parties, in a democracy, lose elections). And it's misleading to say the US wasn't a multiparty democracy at its founding; it's not that it was single-party, it was that parties as we know them today hadn't formed yet. – Acccumulation Dec 11 '21 at 23:11
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    While there may be some public elections of local officials somewhere in China, I'm not sure that there are widespread public elections for the lowest-level officials. I would love to see one of the answers break that down more specifically. – Mike M Dec 12 '21 at 14:56
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As an ordinary Chinese who borned, grown, educated, working in mainland China, I can tell you that the "whole-process people's democracy" is not democracy at all. It's just a trick to deceive the Western world.

Most ordinary people in China would not see a vote in their entir life. Only a very few ordinary people (most of them are college students) can vote in the lowest level of elections, they know nothing about the candidates which they vote for, which could be considered as a ridiculous democracy show.

Just like "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics", it's not socialism at all. (Just like name a tomato as "Apple with Chinese Characteristics", it's not apple at all)

Edit:

Q: What kind of ordinary people can participate in the election？

A:

  1. College students/teachers in good universities such as 985/211: 四川大学：我校顺利进行武侯区、双流区人大代表换届选举
  2. Doctors in hosptial founded by the goverment: 北京协和医院：第九届工代会第七届职代会召开
  3. Teachers in goverment-found school: 深圳中学：我校区人大代表选举工作顺利完成

Q: Why did I say: "they know nothing about the candidates which they vote for"?

A: First, I used to vote once like this as a college school student, none of my classmates know anything about the candidates, as same as what happened to my friends in other universities. Second, in a country which there is a real election, you can easy find candidates' political advocacy even in the lowest level elections via Internet. But you can't find anything about the candidates in China even the Internet is fully controlled by the goverment (I say goverment actully is the ruling Party which is the CCP)

user975384
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