Has China's success popularized and brought credibility to authoritarianism and single-party rule?

Question

Robin Daverman · Answer

%3E Has China's success popularized and brought credibility to authoritarianism and single-party rule?
Well, that’s the problem with propaganda - if you rely on propaganda to try to explain reality, sooner or later your logic will take you to absurd conclusions. This is one of them.

Henry Kissinger  [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger ]knows a thing or two about China. At least more than most people on this forum. In his book Diplomacy (book) [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomacy_(book) ], he made the comment that the Chinese Communist Party sees itself as followers of scientific methodology, and looks at their American counterpart the way a scientist looks at someone walking off the street.

China is authoritarian in the sense that factual data is authoritarian over people’s opinions. The political structure is set up to encourage economic and social achievement through research and experimentation. Every city and every district is involved in some sort of experimentation - Shanghai and a dozen other cities are experimenting with free trade zones, The China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone: Background, Developments and Preliminary Assessment of Initial Impacts [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/twec.12364/full ] Guizhou and other cities are experimenting with poverty reduction, a handful of cities are trying various education reform, provinces in North East are experimenting with SOE reform, … There are pilot schools, pilot cities, pilot hospitals, pilot markets, pilot everything under the sun, the whole China is basically a giant portfolio of experiments, with mayors and provincial governors as Primary Investigators. You want to get promoted? Then you have to do an excellent job analyzing the situation and figure out a good solution, and the best solution is quickly propagated throughout the nation.

So then you may say, why should your opinion matter more than mine? Well because I have data and you don’t! Almost all of the domestic policies have to run through this experimentation cycle, from small villages to small towns, to big cities , to whole provinces, to be sufficiently optimized to go before the People’s Congress and get their approval for a national trial, before it becomes an official policy. The whole process can take 10 to 30 years and supported by a preponderance of data. Yes, China is quite authoritarian this way.

You see, China is trying to get to the correct policy by research and experimentation, and Western democracy is trying to get to the correct policy by counting popularity. The Copernicus method vs. the Google method. Most other countries can be authoritarian but can’t be Chinese, because China has always been a secular culture so people take it for granted that nobody knows what’s right unless the various options are tried, and show me the result of your experiment. To say that Policy X is the best thing because it’s closer to a doctrine, ANY DOCTRINE, is such a bizarre concept that it would never even enter the mind of the Chinese! When Deng started China’s reform in the 80’s, he told the public that “I’ve no idea what to do. We have to cross the river by feeling for the rocks.” And the response from the Chinese people? “Thank goodness we’ve got somebody with common sense!” This is totally different from theist cultures, where people care deeply about whether a proposed policy complies with their doctrine, and take if for granted that if something complies with their doctrine, then it must have good result. In the West, a politician gets elected by saying “I will do A, B, and C to fix problems 1, 2, and 3.” In China a politician gets selected by saying “I have dealt with cases similar to problems 1, 2, and 3, and here are the short term results and long term follow up data. As to your issue here, I’m not qualified to say because I have not done any research and investigation, but I’m eager to work with everybody on the team and do my best.” So it’s not that authoritarian is inherently good, but the solutions that have been tested in real life, where the bad ideas get killed and the good ones survive, tend to be better than the “solutions” that just pop out in a dilettante’s mind. Big Surprise!

And rational people should support NASA’s authoritarianism over the Flat Earth Society!

Regarding Western Democracy, China has a rather different view of it. In the West, there is the Left Party, represented by la gauche of France (central theme “Equality”), and there is the Right Party, represented by the Conservative Parties in different countries (central theme “Freedom”). The Chinese view this political classification as illogical and misleading. The real classification is this:

When you, sitting in a chair, decides what to do, you have three choices. You can keep sitting in the chair, you can get up and go left, and you can get up and go right. Remain sitting in the chair is Conservatism, meaning that you are largely happy with status quo. That’s the literal meaning of CONSERVatism.

OK then. Let me ask you, what is Western Democracy with Universal Suffrage? At least 51% of the votes, right? The majority? Well if an opinion is the Majority, by definition this is the way the society is right now, correct? So it’s Conservatism, right? So basically, if people vote for what they truly believe, they get Conservatism. All these political slogans of “Change” get you basically Brownian Movement around the Status Quo. Democracy is not inherently liberal. It’s the opposite. It’s inherently conservative.

Thus a Hindu-majority country elected a Hindu Nationalist who used to be banned by the US for supporting Hindu terrorism (India), a Muslim-majority country just gave presidential power to its Islamic Party (Turkey), a Shia-majority country suppressed their Sunni minority and turned to Iran for help (Iraq), a Buddhist-majority country wants to get rid of its Muslims (Myanmar), and a viciously tribal country remained viciously tribal under “democracy” (Afghanistan). And the Chinese are looking at you like you are a f*cking idiot. What? Did you expect something different? Why?

Western Democracy produces Conservatism relative to where the society is at the moment. It’s only “liberal” if and when the nation used to be ruled by a fascist minority espousing values that are far from the mainstream of the society. Like Marie Antoinette and her alleged “let them eat cake” comment. It does not change the values of the majority. That’s why Switzerland, the oldest direct democracy in the world, did not allow women the right to vote until 1971. So what if you want to realize something that is not currently the mainstream of your society? You lie and make your proposal sounds like just an appendage of the mainstream opinion.

The other day I saw a septic tank being pulled by a special truck, with a sticker on the back, “Alert! This vehicle may contain campaign promises!” So you see, most people actually know that campaign promises are not the least bit reliable, and democracy with competitive campaigning ends up institutionalize lying. Just ask yourself, is there a politician alive who doesn’t lie? Do they lie more than the average Joe, or do them lie less? You see, the environment creates a reverse-selection on those with a good and strong lying trait!

So yeah, it’s quite different. But it has the advantage of being able to explain everything that’s happening in the world right now, which is what the Liberal Democracy theory can’t do, other than saying “voters are stupid”. Yep, the newly stupid voters. What a shock! But hey, never let inconvenient fact get in the way of theology.

Anonymous · Answer

No.

As ironic as it sounds, China does not neatly fit into sweeping labels like “authoritarian” or “single-party rule”.

If you live in China long enough, you can see many instances where the authorities have very little de facto power. While the CCP looks like a monolithic organisation, there are n factions vying for influence, much like… any multi-party system of governance in the world. In fact, there are actually many political parties in China [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_China ].

Finally, whatever works for China may not and likely will not work for other countries with different cultures, histories, and social issues. China does not preach its system worldwide. In fact they advise the opposite: don’t copy China, figure out what works for your own people.

Chris Liu · Answer

I would say that yes, and it is partly due to America’s failures as well as China’s successes. That doesn’t predict the future though.

China’s growth has followed the trajectory set by Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore.

* Japan saw very rapid recovery after 1950 until about 1990, and even today, its been argued that its “Lost Decade” has been grossly exaggerated to protect its export surplus (Opinion | The Myth of Japan’s Failure [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/the-true-story-of-japans-economic-success.html ]). In theory it is a democracy, in practice, it is a single party state with the Liberal Democratic Party in power almost entirely.
 * Taiwan’s very rapid growth was dominated by the Kuomintang [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuomintang ], but underwent reforms in the late 1980s and early 1990s
 * South Korea’s most rapid economic growth was under authoritarian rule and today it has been considered a “flawed democracy”. The impeachment of Park Geun Hye recently has not given much confidence as public corruption is very common in South Korea.
 * Singapore is an authoritarian nation dominated by the People’s Action Party. Although in theory there are “elections” it is very illiberal.
Elaborating on the differences between each nation (and if you consider Taiwan a nation, which is open for debate), they all see very consistent growth.

All of these nations saw very rapid economic growth from relative poverty and Third World status into middle income and even advanced economy status in a modest period of time. It is increasingly looking like China has followed that trajectory.

The rapid rise of China is important because it has about 10x the population of Japan. It will likely overtake the US at some point in terms of GDP, having already done so in PPP and manufacturing output. Barring a crash, it is likely that China will overtake the US in terms of economic size in the next 10 years.

While the CCP in China has many flaws, particularly corruption and inequality (the emergence of “fuerdai”, kids of wealthy officials, is an especially acute problem), it has managed to transform China from a Third World nation to a middle income and in many cases, a developed nation within a generation.

Despite the other challenges China faces (ex: pollution, water shortages) and its border disputes, that still has a huge impact. Hundreds of millions of people have been uplifted from desperate poverty into something approaching a middle class lifestyle.

America’s missteps have hurt as well

A very big problem is that the US has also made major missteps in the appeal for democracy.

* The decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 has greatly damaged the reputation of the US throughout much of the world.
 * The re-election of George W. Bush in 2004 after the Iraq War damaged the world’s opinion of Americans.
 * More recently, the election of Donald J. Trump has hurt America’s reputation in many nations as well.
 * The 2008 Crisis also damaged the reputation of Americans style capitalism.
Throughout the Cold War, the US has always tried to give a message of “be like us”. That may have had some appeal when the US led the world in terms of living standards, but with high inequality today in the US, the living standards of the median income American are not that good compared to the rest of the Western world. Sure the very wealthy lead the world in living standards, but for the common citizen among the wealthy nations, the US is nothing to brag about. We can see that in terms of life expectancy and other health outcomes.

Often the surveys show that the top nations in terms of living standards are typically the Nordic nations. Many of the European nations like Switzerland and the Netherlands do well. Among the Anglo nations, standards of living are arguably highest in Australia and Canada. The US has made relative losses, in part due to the decline of the middle class and US manufacturing.

This has made the appeal of the American “way” a lot less appealing to the rest of the world. America’s “soft power” is in decline.

What does that mean?

It does leave a sort of situation where there are now 2 very strong nations. I think that when, as is likely in the next few years, China does overtake the US, we will over a period of decades see a shift towards China and the Chinese model in terms of economics.

That may mean other things like Chinese playing a bigger role in international diplomacy, Chinese culture gaining a bigger audience (kind of like how the US has Hollywood, Japan has Japanese Anime, Pokemon, etc), and China will be looked on more during times of international crisis. Likewise China will likely through its massive scientific expenditures dominate a greater part of the world’s breakthroughs.

None of this is assured though. The US going into a multilateral world leaves a lot of uncertainty.

Could the East Asian economic model be copied? It is an interesting question. It will gain more prestige when China does overtake the US in economic size. It is an important question, perhaps because if so, I think we could someday lift the world up out of poverty. Care must be taken though as to ensure that the ecological impacts do not lead to runaway global warming or some other disaster though.

Another is if China makes more liberal reforms. Hu Jintao certainly leaned towards that way. Xi Jingping seems to be moving away from those reforms though. It is really unknown.

Anonymous · Answer

Not necessarily.

In theory, democracy doesn’t always ensure the best decisions are made, but at the same time it also prevent the worst decisions from being made. I kinda think of it as a narrower bell curve with smaller standard variation. Of course this is in theory only, many countries in this world are still in ruins despite being democratic, that’s probably because they’re not real democracies but just oligarchies in disguise.

Authoritarianism on the other hand is a bit like a wild card, or a much flatter bell curve with a huge standard deviation, this means they tend to have higher chances of making extremely good or extremely bad decisions. For examples of extremely bad decisions, look at china between 1960 - 1980, for examples of extremely good decisions, again look at china between 1980 - now.

Another thing to consider is that authoritarianism often can get both good and bad things done very quickly with its total disregard towards any opposition, while democracy with its checks and balances in place are designed to make any change happen slowly in order to avoid any serious mistakes.

With that said, now if you have a country with an established economy and a generally well-run society and a relatively satisfied population, the risk of going backwards as a result of extremely bad decisions easily outweighs the potential gain of moderately good decisions, hence a more moderate and conservative system is favored.

But if you’re dealing with a dirt-poor, war-torn, shit hole of a place with a people vying for change, then the moderate progress slowly brought by moderately good decisions may not be enough, and the risk of further devastation as a result of extremely bad decision would seem rather trivial considering anything destructible has already been destroyed and people wouldn’t really worry too much about starving if they’re already starving. In this case, people tend to take a gamble with authoritarianism hoping some improvement can be achieved quickly if the benevolent dictator can make some really smart decisions.

The only reason authoritarianism has worked for china is because until quite recently China was exactly this dirt-poor, war-torn, shit hole of a place where people were starving and vying for change and it seemed like any change is better than no change at all.

Anonymous · Answer

To some extent anyway.

Though one should really point out that it is less of China being a unique case as it simply being the biggest case AND it happened in the post cold war world where information have become far less sanctioned in the world .

One should point out that Taiwan was almost identical to the PRC system through most of it’s rise. one should point out Japan is in reality an authoritarian society / state just in a more unique sense. South Korea was a freaking Junta supported by the US that laid most of the foundation for it’s later success.

Also, modern people are now more aware of the incredible transformation of the Soviet Union in it’s earlier phases. You can crap on Stalin all you want but you really need to realize that the comparison point must be versus Tsarist Russia.

Because for all the non-western countries, most of them realize that their realistic goal is to get better tomorrow than today, at that it is much more reasonable to take comparison point of countries that had similar problems and made it in recent history. instead of you know… inserting a system that involved from monarchy and revolutions several centuries ago and involved completely different circumstances and backgrounds.

Anonymous · Answer

I have a different answer: I can only speak for myself, and I think the answer is no. There is no doubt that the Chinese government has made good policy decisions, and has also been very lucky, but in my mind, that does not mean anything.

A similar argument would fall along the lines of being white is a necessity for successful economic development, because over the past 200 years, the world’s leading economic powers have been…white.

Countries, like people, go through runs of good luck and bad luck. Recently, China has had good luck, good timing and hard work which makes it look good. Another factor which has helped China is that the US and the west have made very bad decisions, and in the past year, the US and UK have been doubling down on their bad decisions because their leadership is panicking.

But just because other people are idiots doesn’t make you a genius, even though it may be tempting to your own ego to think so.

Keep things in perspective, and don’t gloat over others’ bad decisions, even if it is very tempting to do so.

Min Yan · Answer

It is wrong to read China’s success as making authoritarianism and single-party rule credible. In fact, it is dangerous to attribute some phenomenon to simple labels, especially when the labels are so vague that they become almost meaningless.

For example, parties are completely different organisations in China (almost synonymous with government), in US (mostly election machine) and in UK (much more organised than US). In fact, CCP of China and the other small “democratic parties” in China (such as 中国民主同盟 China Democratic League [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Democratic_League ] or 中国致公党 China Zhi Gong Party [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Zhi_Gong_Party ]) are all called parties, but certainly CCP is completely different from these small parties.

When “party” can mean so many things, it is a non-starter to talk about “single-party rule”.

The real significance of China’s success is to force the other countries to think substance instead of labels. They can learn from how China makes policy decisions, how China selects its officials, how China manages a rather mixed economy, how China set a long term vision and stick to it, what kind of mistakes China made, etc, etc. The answers cited in the original questioner gave plenty of details of how things work and do not work in China.

The reason for success or failure is not this or that ideological label, but pragmatism. The first step to achieve true democracy is to ban the use of word “democracy”.

Derek Gould · Answer

There was a study done (regrettably I can’t recall the details) which found that socialism/authoritarianism works better than democracy when a country’s GDP is below a certain level. This helps to explain why, when dictatorships are overthrown and a democractic government is installed , it fails to perform.

Until such time as the majority of people in China have achieved a comfortable standard of living, the people will be more satisfied with an authoritarian government which delivers steady economic progress and improved living standards than a democratic one which doesn’t.

Gwydion Madawc Williams · Answer

Yes. And if you use a neutral definition of democracy - government that gives people what they want and lets the talented rise from humble beginnings - you could also call it a successful system of democracy. Not prone to the problems of the Republic of India, with its mix of regionalism and hard-line Hinduism. Or the total breakdown that happened in most places where the Arab Spring toppled the existing regime.

Note that Britain had about 200 years of parliamentary dominance before elections became even loosely democratic: see British Democracy Began in 1884.

The USA had a couple of generations

Note that Britain had about 200 years of parliamentary dominance before elections became even loosely democratic: see British Democracy Began in 1884 [ https://gwydionwilliams.com/40-britain/665-2/ ].

The USA had a couple of generations stabilizing itself under the Federalists before political democracy triumphed. And then it was just for white man, and helped save both hard-line religion and racism. Meant that a war was needed to abolish slavery.

See also The many versions of democracy [ https://gwydionwilliams.com/46-globalisation/the-many-versions-of-democracy/ ].

Anonymous · Answer

The answer is a qualified yes. China has achieved success through a well-organized, carefully thought out and rational plan, which started with inspiration from Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. They constantly evaluate and reevaluate their methods, and base everything on subjective data, as Robin Daverman below points out.

Watch Chinese news, and you quickly get bored of the government announcing new policies, policy tweaks and successes. Very different from news in democracies where the politicians’ antics are much more fun. But Chinese bureaucrats focus on governing and planning for the long haul, without worrying about short term electoral gains.

China is a one-party state, but it is not monolithic. Every party secretary and governor/mayor of its 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions and 4 direct controlled municipalities, those sub-divisions under them, and all the leaders of China’s various government ministries and state-owned enterprises COMPETE among themselves every year. They are measured on detailed KPIs and only the best get PROMOTED. The average remain or get retrained, and the mediocre or corrupt get removed.

China is a massive bureaucracy where initial entry is based on examination results or connections (rarer these days), but subsequent promotion is merit based. This creates a massive stream of skilled bureaucrats focused on doing their best to get promoted.

But this does not mean the Chinese model is easily replicated elsewhere. Many other countries have on-party states, but none has achieved anything close to si China’s success.

They lack the discipline, cohesion and guiding vision of the CCP, and have proven unable to bring prosperity or even stability to their countries. There is a huge difference between their parties’ internal structure, governance, size and ideological spirit and that of the CCP’s. Vietnam comes closest to replicating China’s success, unsurprising given the close though troubled history and relationship between their two governing parties.

In summary, one-party and authoritarian states rarely succeed unless the dominant party is very well-organized and led. China, as well as Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Turkey were or still are authoritarian states during their most critical growth periods. What differentiates them from other authoritarian states is their leading party or junta’s ability to govern and organize.

There is no best political system. Success depends on the leaders’ ability, will and vision.

Anonymous · Answer

They absolutely will

That's inevitable

Yet it will be a kind of democracy that the world has never seen before

China is a nation where The People decide how the Nation is to be governed

Mao didn't usurp power like Lenin and overthrow a regime

Mao fought a Civil War and asked the People to choose between him and Chiang

The People chose Mao

They didn't vote for him but they marched at his side when he had a fraction of the weapons and money that Chiang and his huge war surplus KMT had

The People chose communism

The People chose to adopt the present One Party Meritocracy Model or a Capocracy model

One day the People will choose the next model which may be a real democracy or maybe the next to next model

Only it won't be a SHAM DEMOCRACY like in the West

It would be a genuine democracy where People actually participate in decisions and actually have their opinion taken while passing laws

China is an Evolutionary Society of the People

A Nation who once killed birds and caused a huge famine now used Rabbits and saved a massive ecosystem

So China would be a True Democracy of the People maybe in the next 20–40 years

That's where they are heading to

Yet there will be no Party system like India or UK or Europe.

It would still be a one party system but every law will be passed only if it has 2/3 Public approval

In short THE PEOPLE WILL COLLECTIVELY BECOME THE EQUIVALENT OF A PRESIDENT

Nicholas Wong · Answer

By what standard do you call China a “success”? All of her East Asian neighbours (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong), who started from largely the same base after WW2, had achieved the same or higher per capita living standard almost HALF A CENTURY AGO, with less pollution, less toxic food, fake drugs, and more human rights and freedom along the way. If you call China a "success", you might as well call a student who only managed to answer half the exam questions in twice the average time a "success".

The Chinese government would probably come back with the same old tired excuse "China has

The Chinese government would probably come back with the same old tired excuse "China has too many people", but then if you ask "what if some of those people want to leave?", they'd say "we’re gonna destroy them!". You can't reason with these clowns. Besides, didn't the Supreme Clown Chairman Mao said “many hands make light work” (人多力量大)? I actually agree with him, but not when they’re governed by a centralized and authoritarian state.

Joseph Wang · Answer

My political views are derived from William Blackstone and Cicero and also I am a big fan of Alexander Hamilton and the writers of the Federalist Papers. There is a thing as too much democracy, and an ideal government is a mux of autocracy, oligarchy, and democracy.

The democratic parts involve the government caring about public opinion, and having people from different backgrounds and view work with each other for the common good. All the Chinese government demands is that you love China and work within the political system. Once that is the case, then everything else will work itself out. Once it is clear that you love China then the people running China in fact care what you think.

By contrast politics in the US had become this struggle for power.

As far as working better. The economy is in decent shape. We have had decades of economic growth and the Chinese government has a plan and a strategy for the rest of the century. Dealing with COVID has been a major success, and the shops and restaurants in Hong Kong are full.

I'm.still recovering from the riots and I still have the occasional panic attack. There was a moment when I was walking down Central and I heard a lot of people shouting and for a moment I felt like fainting. It turned out that a new pizza place had opening and you had a parade of people giving out free samples. The pizza was good, but I had to sit down for about five minutes to calm my nerves.

What happened in Hong Kong in 2019 will scar me for the rest of my life, but better scars then active wounds. But if I go outside, I see a ton of problems but I see a government that I trust that wants to work with me to fix those problems. And I like the general direction Hong Kong and China are going.

How many Americans think the US is headed in the right direction? I get the sense that the Chinese government is willing to listen and actually cares about what I think. I don't get that impression about the US government.

If I want to see what the CCP means by democracy, I just look outside. Hong Kong will be electing a new legislature in two weeks, and Beijing has set things up so that all stakeholders have a seat at the table. If the pan-dems get their act together they can probably get 10 seats out of 90. That's enough for them to have a seat at table.

As far as democracy in the US just look at the 1/6 Capitol riots. Can you imagine Donald Trump saying. Look I disagree with black lives matter but I believe they are patriotic Americans and if I ever get power I will make sure that they will get a fair hearing and I will work to see that their grievances are listened to.

All I get are lectures about democracy.

Bill Chen · Answer

What's the antonym of authoritarian? According to the thesaurus, it's permissive or liberal.

In other words, authoritarian is a STYLE of governance, not a SYSTEM of governance.

And how does the OED define democracy?

One man one vote.

It is a voting system to choose leaders, and not a SYSTEM of governance.

Meanwhile, the word regime refers to a particular system of governance, but CONNOTES a negative form, namely oppressive or repressive leadership that burdens the people.

Five minutes with a dictionary and it lays bare the revolving door of innuendo a thousand such questions depend on, and the poor grasp of political concepts among the ilk.

And that is sad.

The Chinese government has many faces. It has been remarkably liberal and forbearing in the conduct of diplomacy, to the point many states do not treat it with the p5 UN security council status that it deserves.

Other than heinous crimes, China's criminal code is more lenient than many first world states, especially in what it classifies as misdemeanors and the variety of process and discipline available to shape antisocial behavior.

Put another way, any more-than-cursory exploration of Chinese criminal justice can support the “authoritarian” thesis among several highly evolved first world “regimes” when it comes to the handling of crime.

The Chinese system of governance is thoroughly modern.

Bloodlines and patronage are no longer seen as legitimacy to rule, unlike say, the UK, with the Crown and the House of Lords still fixtures of public life.

There is a continually revised constitution to keep up with the times, unlike the US, trapped in its insistence that they are living perfection at the end of history.

Parliament is carefully chosen from the people, designed to offer the broadest representation throughout society, whether it is across ethnicity, geography, religion, gender, income, profession, special needs or what-have-you. Consultation across all levels of society is baked into policymaking.

I have not come across a more diverse and representative parliament. Not even india's vaunted “democracy” comes close.

I can go on to describe the good in Chinese governance which is surprisingly plentiful but I won't.

Ultimately, what is good governance? A government that is of the people, by the people and for the people.

And the Chinese are the best people to judge, because they have to live China.

The rest of us making vicarious choices on their behalf to inflate the ego should be rightly ashamed.

Robin Daverman · Answer

China's political system defies Western convention in many ways. It is quite unique. Just to highlight a couple of things:

1. The emphasis on "collective leadership". The Chinese Politburo Standing Committee (SC) members, 7 of them, were all independently voted in by the People's Congress (2,000+ members). It is composed of 3 economists, 1 historian, 2 scientists, 1 lawyer. Both Xi and Li are Ph.D.s. Xi maybe the Prime Minister but nobody in the Standing Committee owes his job to Xi. They became SC members by their own track record, and they represent different policy outlooks. They all have to agree in order for a policy to be approved. From this perspective, the way the Chinese Standing Committee works is closer to the coalition governments in France and Germany than the "winner take all, the president appoints everyone in his cabinet" 2-party system in the U.S. But what happens when they don't all agree?

2. Experiment. One of the key departments in the Chinese bureaucracy is the "Policy Research Department". There are literally thousands of pilot programs going on in China everyday that are initiated and monitored by it. For example, China wants to improve its higher education system. Currently there are dozens of joint-development programs piloting various approaches, trying to figure out the pros and cons of different solutions to various issues, including accreditation, credit transfer, student and faculty recruiting, financing, academic freedom, publication and IP, etc. All these experience will be collected and analyzed as the basis for SC policy initiatives on education.

3. The role of the "party". I think this is where much of the misunderstanding happens. Western Europe has had 500 years of political party system based on ideology. The U.S. has had the 2-party system since inception. China, on the other hand, has had at least 3,000 years of strong central government WITHOUT political parties! "Politician" is a dirty word in China for thousands of years. Instead, the bureaucrats view themselves as "country managers", in the way as one would view any technical profession. The CCP has successfully wedded itself into it. It's strength is not in numbers (only 6% of Chinese are CCP members) but in owning the career track for "country managers": all SC members started at the grass root level, get management training every year, starting with managing a small organization such as a village or a factory, gradually move on to cities and provinces, eventually get voted into Standing Committee based on their track records. It's a very "technical" career track. Nobody gets to the top because of his ideology and popular appeal, the way the U.S. elect her presidents. It's very different but, well, it has been working for China for thousands of years.

Off the top of my head, I think all three characteristics help CCP consolidate and perpetuate its position in China. The emphasis on "consensus" means that no individuals can make arbitrary decisions which are counter to the collective interest; The emphasis on "experimentation" means that to a large extent, the party is not making decisions based on ideology but on practicality; and making CCP the accepted career track for country managers means that CCP will stay in power.

But if there's anything to be learned from the "China experience", it's how to be EXTREMELY PRACTICAL and not to run a country on ideological basis. China has a solid, 2,000 year history of collective agricultural society governed by "national merit scholars" selected through double-blind national exams, with no race wars, no religious wars, and no national political parties. Leave to herself, she will self-select a form of government that is collective and merit-based. CCP molded itself to this mode. I really don't know if this type of government will work for other societies. It probably will not work for those Middle East countries where sectarian conflict is such a big part of the political landscape.

Kelvin Zheng · Answer

In fact, China's situation is democracy in autocracy, which we call "democratic centralism".

The Communist Party of China has more than 80 million Party members, more than the population of many countries. They are all the most elite talents in this country.

Therefore, when 80 million members of the Communist Party of China elect leaders, there will be no case of "hospitals recruiting an actor to be a doctor".

The system is hard to replicate because other countries don't have so many elites.

Thomas Lee · Answer

Hi Abim,

Thanks for A2A.

Why can't an one-dominant party system that elects and chooses their own leaders through a well established process of meritocracy in China not democracy ?

You believe a 2 party system used in the US that elects their leaders through popularity, money, the influence of media and racism in the US a democracy?

Below is an article written by a Westerner for Westerners who don't know about China but somehow believe they have expert knowledge about China, explaining why China doesn't want western style democracy.

https://ssaurel.medium.com/sorry-westerners-most-of-the-chinese-people-love-their-government-and-dont-want-your-democracy-bce7e747687c
Isn't democracy about respecting people's differences and choices ? Why must some countries force others to adopt their system and why must other countries adopt what the West is doing or they are condemned undemocratic ?

There's ZERO evidence Western democracy is the best way, the only way or the only right way for a nation to function well and to prosper economically.

In thousands of years of human history, Western democracy in the current form that most people including minorities, people of color, women and disabled people can vote ONLY started to happen slightly more than 100 years.

Most western countries did NOT get rich and prosperous because of democracy, it was colonialism and imperialism that they robbed, enslaved, mass murdered, exploited and stole from weak countries to get themselves rich and powerful leaving those weak and poor countries even weaker and poorer.

https://www.quora.com/Since-it-is-generally-accepted-that-Western-democracy-is-the-best-way-for-a-nation-to-function-and-the-only-way-for-a-nation-to-prosper-economically-how-do-some-countries-like-China-or-Russia-seem-to-do-well-without/answer/Thomas-Lee-1181?ch=15&oid=280667295&share=412c15db&srid=u4qfxn&target_type=answer
Based on a long term study conducted by the Princeton University, Corruption is Legal in the United States.

https://youtu.be/5tu32CCA_Ig
Filmmaker Oliver Stone has told RT that the “totally corrupt” US government has been rehashing old propaganda cliches when promoting President Joe Biden's upcoming international ‘Summit for Democracy’.

“That’s old propaganda: ‘We’re the free world, and the Russians and the Chinese are not. And the Iranians and all the bad guys are on the other side. It doesn’t work that way if you go to those countries,” Stone said. “It’s relative. You have to understand – there's grey matter, it's not black and white.”

Stone pointed to the role of money in American politics and cited reports that a record $14 billion was spent on the 2020 US presidential and congressional campaigns.

When it takes $14 billion to elect a president, you wonder – what kind of democracy is this? You can’t even get a congressman to talk to you unless you pay and you have a business interest. It’s very hard in Washington to get attention for an ordinary citizen. You need money, you need lobbying weight. Our government is totally corrupt.

https://www.rt.com/usa/541188-oliver-stone-biden-summit/
On the other hand, research after research, studies after studies conducted in multiple years by American institutions including Harvard University, Edelman, Gallup and Pew concluded the Chinese government is the MOST trusted government of the world by its own people.

Why change when most people in China are happy with their own democratic system in China ?

Respecting people's choices is DEMOCRACY !

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/
The Harvard survey team found that compared to public opinion patterns in the U.S., in China there was very high satisfaction with the central government. In 2016, the last year the survey was conducted, 95.5 percent of respondents were either “relatively satisfied” or “highly satisfied” with Beijing. In contrast to these findings, Gallup reported in January of this year that their latest polling on U.S. citizen satisfaction with the American federal government revealed only 38 percent of respondents were satisfied with the federal government.

Anonymous · Answer

No, because western democracy in its current form does NOT deliver social progress.

It is built on a patronage system where certain interest groups support opposing political and social platforms for voters to choose. It has degraded into a manipulated system where politicians are elected on the basis of personal attractiveness to the public instead of public policies.

The Chinese traditionally have a strong distrust of talkers; they prefer people who quietly go about their business and deliver instead. Most Chinese consider talkers to be superficial individuals who cannot be trusted by the public.

That is why Chinese don’t like a system like western democracy.

The current Chinese system is a one-party system focused on delivering an improving quality of life to the Chinese people in tangible ways such as plentiful food at affordable prices, improving healthcare and modern infrastructure with fewer Chinese living below poverty.

Do western political systems deliver this?

Anonymous · Answer

They may not believe in a one party rule, but they may believe in a two parties rule, or a two point five parties rule (two major parties plus one independent party), or a two point two parties rule (two “establishment” parties with one marginalized far-left party and one marginalized far-right party).

For the vast majority of countries on earth, they don’t believe in a five parties rule, or a ten parties rule, or a five hundred parties rule, or a one million parties rule.

They may claim and even be proud that there are many registered political parties with weird names and creepy demands that help increase the “density” of “democracy”. Likewise, the Republican party often puts a certain number of Black Americans on the front of their rally to present “diversity”.

But in the long run of a political circle (before it clashes into chaos until another circle is set), the political power in most of the cases will still be obtained and accumulated by two major parties or one party on the top, either for the reason of simplification of political procedure for the voters and interest groups or the organizing power of the parties or the efficiency and cost management of the political system.

As for the logic for the existence and success of the one party rule in the PRC, it is not difficult to be understood.

This is the map of the 1st century ad for the major empires on earth.

Ever since the Qin Kingdom defeated and united other major kingdoms, “authoritarianism”, which is a trash word because Chinese defines the system as “centralization of power”, has always been the main theme of the Chinese political process when it is not divided. The Kushan, Roman, Parthian, and all empires since then did not have an equal level of centralization of power as much as the Chinese Empire did since the Qin.

Economic substructure determines political superstructure which reinforces the former. The major reason for that is agriculture was extremely advanced in ancient China to supply a large population which hence demands a more advanced and efficient administrating system. Centralization of power was the only way to ensure that.

This is why literately the aristocracy was ended by the Qin Empire, and aristocrats wiped out by the Han Empire’s set up, or even by the broadest definition, the “aristocrats” (generational landlords with their own castes, armies, and career bureaucrats) were wiped out by the late Liang Dynasty in early 1,000 ad. It is also why theocracy was gone and there is no even universal religion in China other than Buddhism imported from Central Asia and India.

However, both of them continued to exist in many other regions and empires due to a weak central regime which hence needed to bring the priests and nobles on board to help brainwash and prevent rebellion which usually end up with being a double edge sword for the rulers. That is also how Christianity came into power in the Roman Empire.

Was it really that bad for “people”? We can compare the quality of life between Chinese peasants with Roman slaves and Indian lowest caste men to tell which one was better, given that social productivity was on the same level.

Even when it is bad, the relatively flattened social and political structure ensured the frequency of the peasant uprising against the central regime to restart the circle, while in contrast elsewhere they were brainwashed into a crusade, jihad, witchhunt, fighting for one lord against another to transfer the internal contradiction by screwing others, not their oppressors, or even refused to respond to the oppression due to brainwashing of religion.

One is class politics with class struggle, another identity politics with identity struggle. The former is dealing or at least attempting to deal with the real problem, while the latter is a cover-up or “making Mexican pay for it”. The former is the case for the peasant uprisings in ancient China (not entirely and not always having a good ending for sure), and aristocracy and religion are for many other places which also explains the root of identity politics in certain countries these days.

That is the context of the one party rule, contrasting the historical contexts which gave birth or justify two parties, federation, union and etc which do not have as much centralization of power as the PRC does.

That context explains the historical but not the current, as some may argue that it is 2020 we live in. However, history always has a great sense of humor.

Toward the process of industrialization, modernization, socialism, globalization, ensuring national security, having 1.4 billion population, technological revolution that significantly increases the efficiency and counters the “bureaucracy” of bureaucracy, a centralized regime is once again reborn from a corrupted and old-time feudal state, as how the feudal empire was reborn from the classic empire (the Qin and Western Han).

Many cases indeed could be subjective like which country has the best leaders or social policy. It is very difficult to compare them without being biased. But it has been gradually being shown that in this age of transformation like in every critical transformation before, that the rain is removing the makeup a woman put on her face.

Covid-19, terrorist attacks, brainwashed and selfish people who refuse to care for their own and other safeties, or the political parties which utilize those incidents for their own gains, and visible political chaos on the street… destroy all the ideologies which stand to defend the system.

Those show the gap of materials not ideas. The materials are life quality which even a rat could understand for if its life is improving or endangered.

Thus, the awakening to the myth of “one party dictatorship” will gradually become a norm given that more tests to the capability of the political system are coming (we just get started) to crush all the ideologies which aren’t built upon fact.

But on the other hand, it doesn’t mean that the one party rule will be everywhere on earth like the ancient centralization of power was poorly practiced in other regions (maybe the Ottoman Empire was slightly closer to it but only slightly). “Feudalization”, “aristocracy”, “tribalism” will still find their “reincarnation” in this age respectively, as how the feudal centralized regime does to the PRC.

This co-existence of various reincarnations will last until the integration built upon globalization and tech revolution are strong enough to set up a world government.

Peter Elliott · Answer

There are something like 10 political parties in China. Just very few people vote for 9 of them. CPC is overwhelmingly popular on account of doing a good job. My wife is only 48 but she can still remember living in poverty. Her and her families circumstances are incomparibly better now so she votes for CPC. They typically get over 90% of the vote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China
So it is a democracy that works a lot better than the US. The proof is in the pudding. CPC is fit for purpose and there’s even more proof around that.

As an aside, no person on the planet could say with a straight face that democracy in the US is fit for purpose.