By Amin Kef Sesay
As the Communist Party of China (CPC) celebrates its 100 years in existence, Chinese Ambassador to Sierra Leone, His Excellency Hu Zhangliang, has been giving a series of enlightening interviews on how the CPC has led and rallied the Chinese people in transforming a war-torn and backward China in the modern times into a remarkable political and economic force in the world today.
In this fifth and final part of the interviews, Ambassador Hu focuses on China’s whole-process democracy through which the CPC promotes and protects in the interest of the Chinese people.
Ambassador Hu started by quoting President Xi Jinping’s remarks: “Whether a country is democratic or not depends on whether it is truly run by the people, depends on if the people have the right to vote and more importantly, whether the people have the right to broad participation. Furthermore, judging whether a country is democratic, one should also look at what political procedures and rules are stipulated by the systems and laws. If the people are awakened only at the time of voting and go into dormancy afterward, if the people only listen to smashing slogans during election campaigns but have no say afterward, or if the people are only favored during canvassing but are left out after the election, such a democracy is not a true democracy.”
Ambassador Hu averred that China has been practicing the whole-process of people’s democracy, which has been proved to be the broadest, most genuine, and most effective socialist democracy safeguarding the fundamental interests of the Chinese people.
Ambassador Hu explained that the whole-process of people’s democracy encompasses two-fold meanings. First, it means that people are at the center. Under the leadership of CPC, the people exercise state power through the National People’s Congress (NPC) and local People’s Congresses at different levels. Second, it attaches great importance to the whole process, ensuring that people not only have the right to election, but also the right to be broadly involved in the whole process of decision-making and governance. It has a complete set of institutions and procedures.
Under the whole-process of People’s Democracy, Ambassador Hu said, the Chinese people enjoy not only the right to democratically elect or elect representatives to the People’s Congresses but also enjoy the right to know, participate, express views on, and supervise the work of the People’s Congresses and the Governments. There are mechanisms, such as polling, consultation, hearing, official hot lines, official opinion boxes etc., to discern what people think about a proposed policy and to tap on the people’s wisdom.
Ambassador Hu noted that the People’s Congresses system is a fundamental platform for exercising the whole process of People’s Democracy. There are five levels of People’s Congresses in China. The deputies are elected by their respective constituencies, either directly or indirectly. Deputies to People’s Congresses at the lower levels of township and county are elected directly by voters.
This level of deputies account for a majority of deputies at all levels. They in turn elect deputies to People’s Congresses of the districts or cities, who elect deputies of the provincial level. The National People’s Congress (NPC) deputies are elected by the People’s Congresses of the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. In 2019, there were a total of 2.67 million deputies of People’s Congresses of all levels, including 590,000 at the county-level, and 1.94 million at the township level. Among all the deputies over 90% are elected directly by voters.
Ambassador Hu furthered that these deputies come from every district, every trade and every ethnicity. For instance, many of the deputies of the current NPC are ordinary citizens from all walks of life, including farmers, factory workers, craftsmen, and even street cleaners. At the annual full session, the deputies review and vote on important legal documents and personnel changes, including electing China’s President and Vice President every five years and submitting motions and proposals. Since the 13th NPC First Plenary Session in 2018, over 1795 motions and 33472 proposals have been submitted by the deputies.
Ambassador Hu pointed out that the People’s Congress system has provided an important institutional guarantee for the Chinese people to safeguard their fundamental interests and create the miracles of China’s fast economic growth and long-term social stability.
Ambassador Hu added that China has also set up other systems and institutions for the people to exercise democracy. These include the multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the CPC, grassroots self-governance, regional ethnic autonomy, and various other forms of governance.
Ambassador Hu said that political consultation is a unique but very important form of democratic decision-making. Under the leadership of the CPC, all parties, mass organizations and representatives from all walks of life in China take part in consultations of the country’s basic policies and important issues in political, economic, cultural and social affairs before a decision is made and in the discussion of major issues concerning the implementation of the decisions.
For example, during the CPC Central Committee’s coordination and drafting process for formulating the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035,several rounds of solicitations of comments and suggestions from various sectors were held. Over 1 million comments were collected through online solicitations. A total of 546 comments and suggestions have been reflected in the final plan. This is just a vivid demonstration of the CPC’s intraparty democracy and China’s socialist democracy.
Ambassador Hu concluded that democracy is a right for the people of all countries to enjoy, not a slogan reserved for any individual country to presume supremacy or negate others. The judgment of whether a country is democratic or not should be made by their own people and not by the handful of others. Whether a member of the international community is democratic or not should be judged by the international community together, not by a self-righteous minority.
