(Essential question) Zhang Shuhua: How does people's democracy in the whole process surpass the myth of Western-style monistic democracy?
China News Service, Beijing, December 11th, title: How does people's democracy in the whole process transcend the myth of Western-style monistic democracy?
Author Zhang Shuhua Director, Institute of Political Science, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Get rid of the myth of Western-style democracy
More than 30 years ago, scholars such as Francis Fukuyama put forward such arguments as "the final conclusion of history" and "Western-style democratic monism", believing that "democracy, freedom, human rights" and other Western concepts and systems will dominate the world.
At the same time, Western politicians have also made "democracy, freedom, and human rights" absolutized, propagated, labelled, and foreign policy.
For many years, the West has maintained its ideological, system, and discourse hegemony by monopolizing the right to define and judge democracy. If other countries follow, they are friends, but if they don’t, they are enemies.
It may impose political and economic containment on those who are not compliant, or instigate peaceful evolution and color revolutions, so as to westernize the other party’s thinking, assimilate the system, and weaken the discourse.
However, more than 30 years later, the Western-style democratic model has not brought the end of human history, nor has it brought about world peace and development, nor has it brought fairness, justice, democracy and freedom.
On the contrary, the Western camp forced Western-style democracy after the Cold War, which brought turmoil, decline, division, separation, and tears to the world.
Western society itself is also mired in the dilemma of political extremism, social populism, and identity fragmentation.
"Money politics", "elite politics" and "identity politics" are rampant, new capital and old oligarchs compete for power, and chaebol groups control elections.
American political scientist Larry Diamond admitted that Western-style democracy, which the United States is proud of in history, began to decline in 2006.
Francis Fukuyama had to point out in the book "Political Order and Political Decline" that American democracy has fallen into decline and cannot dominate the world.
In April 2016, thousands of Americans gathered outside the Capitol in Washington, chanting "no money politics" and other slogans to express their dissatisfaction with the current electoral politics and democratic status in the United States.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Diao Haiyang
Over the years, some political scholars have begun to change their perspectives, taking the pulse of Western political chaos and morbid democracy.
Most scholars have noticed that deteriorating "democracy" has led to social tears, racial conflicts, and polarization between the rich and the poor, spawning extreme trends such as populism, and exacerbating democratic overdrafts and the deterioration of human rights.
Democracy alienation and deterioration have led to chaotic internal decision-making in some countries, mutual constraints, weak mobilization, and falling into a vicious political cycle.
The myth of Western-style democracy should be dispelled from the following perspectives:
One is that Western-style democracy is not a universal software that is universal.
The formation and development of democracy requires a series of supporting conditions such as economic foundation and the spirit of the rule of law. If you rashly move to another country, it will inevitably be unacceptable.
Western-style democracy is still difficult to be the same, but presents multiple models such as American presidential republic, German parliamentary republic, and British constitutional monarchy. Countries in the world have different national conditions and require diverse democratic political models. If Western-style democracy is forcibly implanted, politics will inevitably arise. Ecological disorder, body rejection.
In response to the Bush administration’s transplantation of American democracy to Iraq in 2003, Fukuyama criticized: It did not understand that democratic government and market economy originated from the interaction of complex factors (including political parties, the rule of law, property rights, and common identity), which have been used in developed democracies for many years. Only available through evolution.
The second is that Western politicians do not give away safe and applicable democratic products for free, but use "democracy" as a tool and means to Westernize, weaken, and evolve other countries and maintain their own hegemony.
Western-style "democratic assembly line" products are often mixed with geopolitical private interests.
As the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in the "State of Democracy in the United States" report, the export of so-called democracy by the United States has resulted in evil results. criticize.
The third is that the congenital defects and acquired deficiencies of Western-style democracy bring about distortion, alienation, and transformation of democracy, presenting the "Western-style democratic aging syndrome."
Western-style democracy has played a positive historical role in the past, but then it has been complacent and failed to continuously reform and improve, and its negative ills have become increasingly prominent.
Western-style freedom thought gradually alienated into "absolute freedom", Western-style democratic values were gradually reduced to a single ballot, and Western-style democratic and human rights concepts gradually evolved into "famous double standards."
Under the superposition of a century of change and the epidemic of the century, political chaos, economic crisis, ethnic conflict, and refugee issues are manifestations of the "Western-style democratic aging syndrome."
In May 2020, anti-racism protests continued in Washington, the capital of the United States.
The death of an African American man George Floyd by violent law enforcement in Minnesota continues to ferment.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Chen Mengtong
Adhere to a comprehensive political development view
To overcome the shortcomings of Western-style democracy and break the paradox of democratization, it is necessary to advocate a new concept of democracy, establish a comprehensive political development concept, and promote political coordination and comprehensive development.
The New Concept of Democracy and the Concept of Comprehensive Political Development believe that Western-style democracy is by no means the end of history, and democracy is by no means the most perfect Western-style.
Democracy is historical, concrete, and developmental, and should be rooted in the culture and reality of a country.
Comprehensive political development includes three sets of interdependent and dialectically unified elements and value pursuits: democratic values (including fairness, rights, and freedom), elements of the rule of law (including stability, rules, and order), and effectiveness goals (including performance, responsibility, and integrity) .
Political democracy and political efficiency are the motives of comprehensive political development, while the rule of law, stability and political order are the conditions and guarantees of political democracy and political efficiency, which together constitute the value and goal of comprehensive political development.
The task of political reform and political development is to accurately grasp the "balance point" of the above three groups of elements.
The development of democracy is an important link in the promotion of comprehensive political development. Only by choosing a suitable path, a reasonable speed, and an effective method can democratic politics be made more efficient and of better quality.
Democratization "single-soldier advancing" may not necessarily promote political development. On the contrary, it may cause democracy to lose control or political decline and fall into the quagmire of "antagonizing politics and low-quality democracy."
The comprehensive political development view advocates overall vision, strategic determination, continuous coordination, and steady control of the "democratization" process, unifies the democratic process in the overall goal of political development, and is in line with the process of economic construction, social construction, cultural construction, and legal construction. coordination.
China's political reform and political development process uphold the concept of comprehensive political development, which embodies the dialectical unity of comprehensive coordination, dynamic development, and sovereignty history.
China has innovated its concept of democracy, human rights, and freedom, put forward and adhered to the concept of comprehensive political development, broke through the Western development model and logical framework, improved its political development power and national governance capabilities, and blazed a new path of democracy for the comprehensive development of Chinese society. Coordinated development provides ideological and value guarantee.
In November 2015, the "Reconstruction of the Country: A Roadmap for China's Comprehensive Reform" was held in Beijing.
Photo by Ren Haixia, China News Service
Develop whole-process people's democracy
A brand-new view of democracy and a brand-new comprehensive political development path represent a true and extensive people’s democracy.
The whole process of people's democracy is the latest achievement and successful practice of Chinese people's democracy. It is a distinctive feature of socialist democratic politics and a distinctive feature that distinguishes it from Western bourgeois democracy.
Through a series of laws and institutional arrangements throughout the process, people’s democracy connects democratic elections, democratic consultations, democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic supervision. It is a full-chain, omni-directional, and fully-covered democracy.
People's democracy remains online at all times during the whole process, transcending the intermittent democracy that enters the dormant period after a short period of voting.
The whole process of people’s democracy has diversified channels for the expression of public interest appeals and a fair interest coordination mechanism, surpassing the partial democracy where the true wishes of the majority are overshadowed by the minority interest groups.
People's democracy in the whole process follows the principle of democratic centralism, which can form the greatest political synergy, effectively guarantee the efficient unity of national governance, and transcend inefficient democracy in which the parties differ, veto each other, lengthy debates, and discuss without decision.
The whole process of people's democracy combines the advantages of direct and indirect, democracy and centralization, process and result, form and substance, and has a full-process and open political participation and democratic expression mechanism.
For example, multi-party cooperation, political consultation, and state-level consultation, transcending the oligarchy rule where political parties take turns to monopolize state affairs, and interest groups control state decision-making power.
China's ethnic regional autonomy system guarantees that people of all ethnic groups are the masters of the country, promotes ethnic equality, unity, mutual assistance and harmony, and goes beyond hypocritical democracy that promotes xenophobia, systemic racial discrimination, and abuse of refugees and immigrants.
Develop people's democracy in the whole process, promote targeted poverty alleviation, rural revitalization, achieve common prosperity in high-quality development, develop people's livelihood, protect people's hearts, and go beyond parasitic democracy that condones the gap between the rich and the poor and relies on money politics.
People's democracy in the whole process does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, and transcends hegemonic democracy in the name of promoting democracy and practicing geopolitics.
In June 2021, white porcelain tea cups printed with the names of democratic parties are placed in the "Concentric Sangzi Living Room" in Jiaguan Town, Chengdu.
In 2018, the United Front Work Department of the Chengdu Municipal Party Committee and the municipal committees of various democratic parties jointly launched the "Rongcheng Star Power · Concentric Sangzi" project. The democratic parties combined their sector characteristics and talent advantages to demonstrate their abilities and promote the development of the local tea industry.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Zhang Xinglong
The development of people’s democracy in the whole process guarantees national stability, people’s unity, and social progress. It demonstrates the institutional advantages of “rule of China” and reflects the people’s character of development goals, the diversity of development methods, the continuity of development processes, and the results of development. Effectiveness.
The practical value and conceptual implications of the rule of China are extensive and profound.
The rule of China based on the concept of new democracy and comprehensive development has opened up a new path for the development of world modernization, created a new form of human political civilization, and is shining and blooming in the garden of world political civilization.
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About the Author:
Photo courtesy of Zhang Shuhua, Director of the Institute of Political Science, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Zhang Shuhua, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, director of the Institute of Political Science of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, director of the Center for Socialist Democracy, Dean of the School of Government Management, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, editor-in-chief of "Politics Studies" magazine, executive vice president of the Chinese Political Society, China Vice President of Policy Science Research Association, Vice President of China Emerging Economies Research Association, Council Member of China Economic and Social Council.
Main research fields: Chinese politics, world politics, comparative politics.
The main representative works include: "Democratization Paradox: Dilemma and Lessons of Post-Cold War World Politics", "New Views on Democracy and Comprehensive Political Development", "Contemporary Russian Political Thoughts", "30 Years of Russia's Road: National Changes and Institutional Choices" and so on.