Sen Lu and Tianyuan Zhe

Western media and some government officials often attack China as an extremely undemocratic country. They describe China as a country in which the people in China have no right to participate in politics, the government persecutes ethnic minorities and Muslims, and people have no human rights and freedom. There is only one party system of the Communist Party in China, even the political power is only in the hands of minority people. However, this is not the case.

As you can see on the Internet, those descriptions of China by western countries often appear. Some people believe that this is a conspiracy of the western world against China, intending to conspire against some people in China and subvert the existing Chinese political system. The reason why so many people in other countries are so afraid of China's political environment is that so many people in other countries want to resist China's political environment. Others believe that these actions are aimed at curbing China's rise. Western countries fear that the world's dominant power, including political, economic, cultural, technological and military power, will be transferred to China, thus losing its leadership over the world. The author does not comment on these opinions. What this article wants to discuss here is: is China a democratic country?

Is China a democratic country? To answer this question, first of all, we need to understand what "democracy" means. Democracy is a form of political governance, that is, political system, derived from the Greek word "democatia", which means " rule by the people ". The democracy of ancient Greece is a kind of direct autonomous democracy, which is the democracy in the classical meaning. China's state system is the people's democratic dictatorship, which means the rule of the vast majority of people, which is in line with the meaning of "rule by the people ".

However, with the change of time, the form and meaning of democracy have changed in the western world. The modern western democracy is different from the classical democracy. We can find western political scholars to prove this point. Dr. Joseph Schumpeter, an Austrian American political economist, believes that the "will of the people" that the classical democratic theory presupposes is false, and there is no common happiness that all the people can agree with or can be uniquely determined by the power of reasonable argument. "Democracy is just a set of institutional procedures, a way to choose political leaders," he said In the modern West, there are basically two views on Democracy: one is that democracy "is mainly a system in which the rulers select and depose rulers and control the latter to some extent; the other is that the people directly participate in the operation of political power and other powers. In modern western countries, due to the problems of population size, ability and quality, the form has also changed, and the representative system based on the principal-agent relationship is generally implemented, that is, the people elect members to form a parliament to exercise state power on behalf of the people. China's political system is the people's Congress system. The highest organ of power in China is the National People's Congress, whose representatives are elected by the people to exercise state power on behalf of the people. It also means that all power belongs to the people and the people are the masters of the country. This is also in accord with the meaning of modern western democracy.

Since China's state system and political system conform to the meaning of "democracy", why do western media and some politicians always say that China is not a democratic country? In fact, the Chinese people have a wide range of political rights in China, such as the right to vote, freedom of speech, freedom of religious belief and so on. Some may argue that China's leaders are not elected by every voter, so they are not democratic. This kind of cognition is wrong. "Democracy" cannot be defined by the number of voters, nor can it be defined by the fact that leaders are elected by voters. For example, in the 2020 U.S. general election, the number of voters will be about 160 million, and the voting rate will be 66.9%, a record high in the United States in the past 120 years. Obviously, it is far from meeting the requirements of national elections. Is the United States a democratic country? Hitler was elected by German voters in 1933. Was Nazi Germany a democratic country? Others may argue that China does not have the three pillars of democratic politics, namely, the parliamentary system, the electoral system and the political party system, so China is not a democratic country. This involves the problem of connotation and concrete form. Parliamentary system, electoral system and party system are modern bourgeois democracy, that is, western democracy. When western media and politicians talk about democracy, they tend to equate western democracy with democracy, which leads people to think that democracy is western democracy. However, we know that democracy is a form of political governance, and Western democracy is one of the forms of democracy. The forms of democracy are various, and their specific forms are not unique. For example, democracy can be compared to human beings in primates, and the specific manifestation is that each individual in human beings, as we know, each human will show different skin color, gender and appearance.

The three pillars of China's democratic politics are the people's Congress system, the system of multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party, and the system of regional ethnic autonomy. These are also the concrete forms of Chinese democracy, which we can call Chinese style democracy. The people's Congress system is similar to the parliamentary system in western countries. All representatives are elected by citizens. They are public opinion organs and legislative organs of the country. The difference is that the relationship between political parties and political power in the system is different, and the representatives in the people's Congress come from different provinces, cities, nationalities, occupations and industries, so they are more representative and have greater power.

The system of the people's Congress includes the parliamentary system and the electoral system. The supreme leader of China is elected by the National People's Congress. The head of government of the central government, the premier, can be appointed only after it is approved by the National People's Congress. The head of government is responsible to the National People's Congress. The system of multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China is China's political party system. Its meaning is that under the domestic constitution and laws, the Communist Party of China is the ruling party, and the democratic parties are participating parties. They work in many government positions of the central and local levels. The primary premise and fundamental guarantee for the cooperation between the Communist Party of China and the democratic parties is to adhere to the Communist Party of China Leading and adhering to the four basic principles. This means that not only the Communist Party of China, but also at least eight other parties are playing an important role.

 The system of regional ethnic autonomy refers to the system under the unified leadership of the state, in which all ethnic minorities live in compact communities to implement regional autonomy, set up autonomous organs and exercise autonomy. It guarantees the political power of minority areas. It can be seen that China has another form of parliamentary system, electoral system and political party system, and on this basis, it also guarantees the political power of ethnic minorities.

The logic that China is not a democratic country because of the differences in the specific forms of expression between Chinese democracy and Western democracy is not correct. According to this logic, that is, to distinguish whether a country is democratic or not in specific forms, then we can also give democracy such an appraisal standard: a country with a system of people's Congress, a system of multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party, and a system of regional ethnic autonomy is indispensable, and such a country is a democratic state. As a result, to define whether a country is democratic or not in specific forms will lead to another conclusion: most western countries are undemocratic countries. Because they don't have these forms.

Some western media and politicians always say that China is not a democracy. What are their motives? It may be based on ideology, it may be cold war thinking, it may be because of China's rise and so on, or it may be deliberately fabricating lies, for which we do not know. However, one thing we can be clear about is that China is a democratic country in terms of the definition of democracy, or in terms of the actual political system arrangement, political structure and actual procedure operation, which is also proved by the domestic laws and the rights of the people in reality.

（Sen Lu, Scholar, Yunnan University; Tianyuan Zhe Scholar, Yunnan University）