Don Rechtman

don@orfeomusic.org

WESTERN-ORIENTED critics of China’s government fervently believe that democracy is the proper way to govern. China also says it values democracy. So what is different?

The underlying idea is that in a democracy, the people are represented in the government. Most Western democracies are “democratic republics,” which means that representatives are elected and they in turn act on behalf of the citizens. This works wonderfully well for relatively small localities like villages, towns, and cities; citizens are already intimately tied up in their local affairs and don’t have to spend a great deal of time studying local issues. With very few exceptions, local issues are simply not that complicated.

But what of interstate, national and international affairs? For the voters to wisely choose their representatives, they absolutely have to take time away from their work, family and passions to become well-versed in the issues before selecting representatives at those levels.

It just so happens that, for their own personal gain, Western politicians have successfully collapsed two concepts: democracy and representation. It is not democracy that makes nations strong; it is providing competent representation of the people’s needs!

Voters do quite well selecting their representatives at local levels. In most Western democracies, we see a failure of representation at higher levels for two reasons: first, the average citizen is unfamiliar with the issues. This is not a question of intelligence; it is a question of focus. It would, for example, be a totally inappropriate waste of time for a medical doctor who is passionate about work to have to take time away from research to study the engineering necessary to design the modules that couple to space stations. Sure, hobbies are essential to the sanity of doctors, but to have a hobby forced on a doctor by necessity is hardly an enjoyable prospect.

The second cause of failure of higher-level representation is in the representatives themselves. The U.S. system was originally designed to exclude politicians from higher public office, but over the years, power and money transformed that into an essentially purely politician-based system of representation. As a consequence, the politicians are not interested in the needs of the people; they’re interested in getting elected and playing into people’s emotions to convince people that they are the best candidate for them! Thus, authentic representation goes “bye-bye.”

We see this blind side of Western democracies in several countries: the U.S. (Donald Trump), England (Boris Johnson), India (Narendra Modi) and many others. What about China’s model?

Western-oriented critics tend to label the centralized and unified leadership of the Communist Party of China as dictatorship. China is certainly not by any means, but is in fact a model of a very successful republic. People do elect representatives at the local levels; villages, towns and cities have elections for various representatives such as mayors and council members. What of the national and international levels?

When the CPC was created in 1921, its founders were already familiar with the concepts of a government that would provide for people first and could already see the economic and social failures of broad-spectrum democratic republics such as those in the U.S. and several European countries. While its design was many years in the making, it was that underlying process of design that enabled China to successfully create the “Peasant’s Army” and ultimately create the modern CPC’s structure.

It was in turn the Party’s structure that provided the means for its early visionaries’ dream to be brought to fruition in the form of what we know today as modern China.

Shortly after my arrival in China and I first talked with Chinese people about politics, my first impression was that there was a pervasive sense of apathy and resignation toward national and international issues, but when talking about local issues, many would light up and talk enthusiastically.

There would be praise, but there would also be criticism; no censorship of free speech here! When pressed, Chinese people will talk about the great things the Party is doing. Of course, there are dissenters; those are the people who are attached to the mythical U.S. dream of power and money prioritized above people’s needs, but the vast majority of Chinese are not simply satisfied with the government; they are delighted and proud. I came to realize it wasn’t apathy; it was being free from having to study something they were not good at or were not interested in.

China has a different system of representation. China’s model is a meritocracy in which the representatives are individuals who have a strong, consistent track record of being passionate about helping others and keeping on top of national and international affairs. After the initial system was established, the members of the meritocratic governing body, known as the Party, would assess the behavior of non-members and would invite them to join the Party if they met the stringent requirements.

The Party has its own democratic elections for leadership positions, as well as its own system of checks and balances: Party members who fail to maintain compliance with the requirements are expelled from the Party, also by a democratic process.

The bottom line is that the Chinese representative system works. People get to participate in selecting lower level officials and don’t have to waste time away from their personal interests and families to study higher level affairs. (Of course, they can study international affairs if they want to; some people really enjoy that as a hobby!)

The Hong Kong so-called democratic movement is totally unrealistic, in that its members are seeking to establish what has proved to be a failed system of governance.

They need to learn the distinction between “democratic” and “representative;” such awareness may make it easier for them to understand why the mainland’s system is so successful.

(The author is a voting citizen from Chico, California, currently residing in Shenzhen. His personal website is www.OrfeoMusic.org.)