(East-West Question) Wang Wen: Why should Eastern and Western democracies learn from each other and move forward?
China News Agency, Beijing, March 11th: Why should Eastern and Western democracies learn from each other and move forward?
Author Wang Wen, Executive Dean of Chongyang Institute of Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, and researcher of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era
The form and content of China's two sessions reflect the whole process of people's democracy.
Democracy is the common value of all mankind, and all countries are exploring their own path to democracy.
The West has formed an electoral democracy in the process of modernization.
China has formed a whole-process people's democracy in its own exploration and practice process.
No matter what kind of democratic system, ultimately it must be reflected in the people's sense of gain.
Times are changing, how to better realize democracy and safeguard the rights and interests of the people, the democratic system needs to be updated with the times.
In this process, the democratic exploration experience of the East and the West is just full of inspiration and mirror value for each other.
Democracy is epochal and national
There have been many problems in Western-style democracy recently, which have also caused reflections by Western media and scholars.
Last year, the US "Capitol Hill" website published an article entitled "The United States Needs Major Political Reform to Consolidate Democracy". Most people believe that the survival of "Western democracy" depends on a thorough reform process.
The root of the problem with Western-style democracy lies in the neglect of two important features of democracy.
One is the age of democracy.
Democracy must have a process of continuous evolution and continuous reform with the changes of the times.
The understanding of democracy in some Western countries is still 200 years ago.
Democracy at that time was subject to multiple restrictions, mainly the democracy enjoyed by elites with certain property and education.
Great changes have taken place in the development of the times.
With the improvement of Internet technology, every citizen has been empowered by technology and gained the right to judge and even dominate the operation of the country and society. At this time, the democratic system will also be updated accordingly.
The second is the national character of democracy.
Each country has different national conditions and has formed different democratic characteristics.
Among Western-style democracy, American democracy is different from that of Britain, France, and Germany, but the United States believes that democracy in the world has a unified standard, and its own democratic method is the universal value of the world. The world has not seen a successful case of transplanting the American way of democracy.
Moreover, in the process of ideological expansion of the United States, it has also brought various human rights harm and disasters.
Demonstrators protest against the deportation of Haitian refugees by the United States in front of the federal building in San Francisco, California.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Liu Guanguan
The measure of democracy at the practical level is the people's personal feelings
There is no globally unified theoretical mark for measuring democracy, but there is a unified practical scale, which is the actual feeling of the people in the country.
Whether a country's system is democratic or not depends on three points. First, whether it can meet the needs of the people for the basic functions of daily life.
Second, whether it can meet the needs of the people for basic personal safety.
Third, whether it can meet the needs of the people for the equalization of social services.
China's political system is currently effective in meeting people's basic needs in daily life, allowing people to share the fruits of national wealth growth and social progress, allowing people to enjoy the security brought by social security and urban governance, and enjoy more equalized social services. It is obvious to all.
In the white paper "Democracy in China", "the whole process of people's democracy" is mentioned.
"People's Democracy in the Whole Process" is China's latest summary and refinement of its own democratic practice, and an innovation and breakthrough in human democratic thought for thousands of years.
When talking about democracy in the past, people would go back to ancient Greece and Rome, but democracy in that period was mainly elite democracy, only a small number of people had the right to speak, and the masses were oppressed or even enslaved.
In modern times, vote democracy emerged in the modernization process in the West, but vote democracy also has certain stages and limitations.
For example, the people are only favored when canvassing votes, and then they are left out after the election; the promises made during the election may not be fully fulfilled.
China explores and summarizes China's democratic path in the successful experience and failure lessons of these historical practices, and sums up the whole process of people's democracy, which is to hope that China's democratic system is a full-chain, all-round, all-covering democracy, and is more inclusive. and service.
China's State Council Information Office released the white paper "Democracy in China".
Photo by China News Agency reporter Yang Kejia
Full coverage means that democracy can cover all fields and all classes.
The whole chain means that people can exercise their democratic rights not only at the moment of voting.
All-round means that the people have the right to enable the country to provide services to the people in a timely and comprehensive manner.
Taking the epidemic as an example, when people's lives are affected by the epidemic, the people can have the right to be protected by the state and the government.
This right involves social security, medical care, daily life security and many other fields.
At every point in time, in every area of people's needs, the right to democracy can be enjoyed.
This right is also a check and balance of public power.
From this perspective, the whole process of people's democracy in China is extensive, real, and effective.
A five-thousand-year history of China is a history of people's continuous pursuit of a better life and their own rights.
After entering the modern age, with the empowerment of technology, the pluralism of society and the deep integration of China into the process of globalization, the requirements for protecting people's rights are getting higher and higher, and the democratic system needs to be continuously improved, upgraded and updated.
Eastern and Western democracies should learn from each other and move forward
The pursuit of people's rights has a similar historical process in both China and the West.
It can be said that the history of political evolution in China and the West is a history of how civilians strive for individual rights, expand individual well-being, and influence the evolution of countries and regions.
Such a historical process has great commonalities between China and the West.
In various periods of Chinese history, from Xia, Shang and Zhou to Han and Tang Dynasties to Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing, in each period, a large number of people, including intellectual elites, fought to improve people's rights.
In ancient China, there were many buddings of simple democratic ideas, such as "water can carry a boat and capsize it", "the prince breaks the law and the common people are the same crime", "the princes and generals have a seed for each other" and so on.
The same is true in the West. From the age of ancient Roman and ancient Greek city-states to the capture of the Bastille by the French Revolution, to the American War of Independence and the British Glorious Revolution, it is also a process of people's struggle for their own rights.
On September 21, 2019, the French National Assembly held an event to commemorate the 230th anniversary of the French Revolution, and the audience visited the large-scale exhibition "Showing the Revolution".
Photo by China News Agency reporter Li Yang
The struggle for rights and the realization of the people's own values is the common contribution of both Chinese and Western human beings.
It is also because of this struggle that human society has been able to make continuous progress, but differences have emerged during the struggle.
The West pursues more struggle experiences and goals that are beneficial to the individual level, and pursues full respect for individual rights.
The East Asian civilizations, including China, which were influenced by Confucian culture, put more emphasis on the concept of collective and family, and paid more attention to collective interests.
Especially in times of crisis, more emphasis is placed on collective interests.
The biggest difference between Chinese and Western democracies, in one sentence, is the difference between individualism and collectivism, which can be proved from the civilizational genes of both sides.
China's political culture is extensive and profound, which is related to the logic of Chinese culture and philosophy for thousands of years.
The West attaches great importance to the beauty of form, and various arts such as painting and sculpture can reflect the clean and powerful form. In the Western culture and political system, more emphasis is placed on the so-called democracy in form and procedure.
China pays more attention to internal and results.
The whole process of people's democracy attaches great importance to whether the results and effectiveness of democracy can truly reflect the vital interests of the people.
Therefore, in the short term, the West will be confused or even questioned about China's democratic system, and there will be distortions and smears by a few people, but this cannot cover up the achievements of China's people's democracy in the whole process.
Understanding China requires understanding Chinese culture, and it also takes a certain amount of time.
Miao women cast ballots at the ballot box in Liuzhou, Guangxi.
Photo by China News Agency Tan Kaixing
It is precisely because of these differences that Chinese and Western democratic systems are more worthy of mutual understanding and learning from each other.
In fact, the two sides are also in the process of learning from each other.
At present, ideological frictions and even conflicts between China and the West, especially between China and the United States, are still very intense, but China pays more attention to inclusiveness. China often says that it needs to learn from the United States and from the best achievements of human civilization.
China has borrowed a lot of excellent experience from the United States, including promoting the incentive system to improve personal benefits to encourage innovation; soliciting the opinions of each individual in the broadest sense through methods such as thorough investigation, publicity system, secret ballot, and organized conversations.
These all borrow something useful from the DNA of Western individualism.
And the United States has gradually raised some voices, hoping to learn something from China.
In the past, some scholars who held a negative attitude towards China's political system also changed their attitudes.
For example, Francis Fukuyama, who proposed the "End of History", now criticizes the continued decline of American-style democracy with discredit, and holds a certain positive attitude towards China's development and China's model.
Dawei Shen, an American professor who published "China's Collapse Theory" in 2015, also began to recognize the advantages of China's political system and expounded on the content of China's political system that the United States can learn from.
In the progress of history, in the process of fierce competition and friction between Chinese and Western civilizations in the field of ideology, the final conclusion must be to learn from each other and move forward together.
(over)
About the Author:
Wang Wen, Executive Dean of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, Deputy Dean and Distinguished Professor of Silk Road Institute, Executive Director of Sino-US Cultural Exchange Research Center, Secretary General of Green Finance Professional Committee of China Society for Finance and Banking, Researcher of Financial Research Center of Counselor's Office of the State Council .
Former editorial board member (in charge of commentary) and editorial drafter of the Global Times, winner of the 2011 "China News Award", and has compiled books focusing on the global situation, macro policies, green development, etc. Lu: Looking back on China's rejuvenation and the future of the world after a survey of 100 countries, "Optimistic about China: A Global Speech by a Think Tank Scholar", and "Fighting: How Chinese Think Tanks Influence the World" and more than 30 books.
Wang Wen has visited and investigated nearly 100 countries (including the South Pole), and the research reports he has written have been instructed and affirmed by the leaders of the party and the state for many times. He is a consulting expert of many ministries and commissions. "Leader of China's Development and Reform", 2016 Influential China Annual Think Tank, 2017 Cultural Famous and "Four Batches" Talents, 2019-2021 for three consecutive years by the National People's Congress "National High-end Think Tank" Construction Decision-making Advanced Individual, 2020 National" "Ten Thousand People Program" Philosophy and Social Sciences Leading Talents and other honors.
In 2016, General Secretary Xi Jinping presided over a symposium on philosophy and social sciences, and Wang Wen was one of the ten speakers.