China is undeniably a rising superpower, with its economic growth, military strength and stability, and strong international relations with United States, China is holding to its promise of "Peaceful rise". With this rising power, China's leaders also held out the promise of some form of democracy to its citizens. Is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) making way to a democratic China? Or is it just a "guided democracy"? For nearly a century now, China's promise of democracy is still largely in doubt and debated in the international arena.
Today, China is defending itself from the international criticisms ranging from pollution, "purposely undervaluing currency" and human rights. However, the debate on democracy still continues as its promises are still in the air.
The People's Republic of China calls itself democracy. However, in the way CCP holds and practices its power is not democratic at all. The CCP came into power in 1949 in order to remake China (Gilley, 2004, p. 27). Since then abandoned the Marxist ideology of communism and executed political reforms. However, CCP did not transform into democratic regime. It continues to see its purpose as chasing utopia- "a strong and prosperous, culturally advanced, democratic socialist nation" according to the state constitution-not governing for the ever-changing aims of diverse society (Gilley, 2004, p.27). Until nowadays, since the establishment of CCP and its promised political reforms, the CCP members still decide the direction of the nation, not the masses.
In its democratic elements on paper, including universal suffrage, direct election of the lower two levels of the four hierarchies of congress, and constitutional powers for the legislature amounting to parliamentary supremacy still remains on theory (Nathan, 2000, p. 23). CCP has never exercised their powers in practice. China has never had a chief executive elected by direct popular vote and there has never been more than one strong political party running in an election. Likewise, speech and organization have never been free of serious restrictions (Nathan, 2000, p. 21).
Furthermore, a democratic state practices a multiparty system. The West continues to advocate the adoption of multiparty system for China however, until now China is still ruled merely by the Chinese Communist Party. Though members of CCP argue that the party is divided into different political parties still it is not convincing enough to say that they have a multiparty system. The different political parties are still under the CCP's leadership and dictatorship (Ogden, 2002, p. 256).
In a speech given by President Hu Jintao during his 2006 visit to the United States, he repeated the word democracy as "the common pursuit of mankind" (Thornton, 2008, p. 3). Likewise, Premier Wen Jiabao in his address to the 2007 National People's Congress, deliberately emphasized developing democracy and improving the legal system as the basic requirements of the socialist system.
However, the question still remains. Is China in the process of having a democratic rule? Are the Chinese citizens freer? Under the CCP, in 1987, the government promulgated the Organic Law of Villagers' Committees giving the 800 million villagers the right to vote directly every three years for leader of villages (Ogden, 2002, p.5). This was the first time that the villagers participated in the election process. This may be a significant step for democratic participation in China's vast countryside however, in the early 1990s, the CCP was disappointed and threatened that only 40 percent of elected village chiefs were CCP members (Thornton, 2008, p. 5). Due to the small number of CCP members being elected, authorities immediately instructed the local officials to ensure that the "leading role" of the Communist Party was maintained.
Indeed, local elections were held due to international pressure on the communist party. The Chinese government gave a taste of freedom to its citizens. The local elections were definitely just a "show" towards freer Chinese political participation. Democracy is when you are free to choose your own leader without internal or external intervention and manipulation, a West-type of democracy.
There may be elections held but the questions lie if there were really elections held in all rural areas and if they were provided with candidate choice. In a 1993 survey (Tianjian, 2000, p. 33-34) conducted by the East Asian Institute, more than 75 percent of the respondents residing in rural China reported that their villages had held elections. Of the respondents, 16.7 percent reported that their village failed to hold elections while 7.7 percent said either they forgot whether their village had held elections or refused to answer the question. Of the respondents, 50.6 percent said that the election was semi-competitive, and 12.5 percent said that the election was plebiscitary. Moreover, 24.2 percent said that the election did not provide them with the freedom to choose village leaders. The survey says that slightly more than 50 percent of peasants in rural China voted in a semi-competitive elections for village leaders.
For many democratic states, elections are held to exercise sovereignty, freedom of expression and freedom of choice and competition. However, in the case of China, the semi-competitive election does not provide us with single evidence that a democratic suffrage was held.
Although the officials of China disagree on the results of the survey, there was no way they can show any official document of the election process. In the communist China, official records are withhold and are not accessible to the public. If there may be documents, it has been noticed by numerous organizations and media that there are flaws in the official records of voter turnout.
Rural elections give a sense of political reform in China and political participation of rural Chinese villagers. In spite of this road to democracy, citizens are still trapped by the Communist Party in selecting and choosing their leaders. In other words, village leaders should be member of the CCP. Villagers could nominate candidates, but the nominees had to be approved by the village party committee. Electoral procedures have not made Chinese citizens the right to choice their own leader, the selection are still control by the CCP.
Moreover, when nonparty candidates are elected, the CCP always recruits them to ensure that the Party remains in charge in decision-making in the villages while giving the villagers the leaders they want (Thornton, 2008, p. 5). As recruits of the CCP, these leaders are then subject to CCP's command. Therefore, the leader can not make decisions that are against the Party. One can argue that this is also the same case for liberal democracies when mayors are subject to the command of the higher officials. But in liberal democracies such us in the United States, they are subject in the sense that the political platform should be followed rather than the mayors' policies and decisions in their constituents should be reviewed and approved first by the Party leaders.
Moreover, separation of powers is not practiced. The judicial system is still independent from the executive branch. Local officials and CCP committees still continue to hold over the courts. They are closely involved in the appointment of judges and prosecutors, and local governments have discretion over salaries and budgets throughout the judicial system (Thornton, 2008, p. 12).
In addition, CCP controls everything, it has indeed impoverishes individuals life by limiting the space for self-realization. Critics and human rights activists in China either flee out of the country, in prison or exiled. Beijing's response to demands of individual rights -access in the internet, freedom of assembly, rallies and demonstrations-is shot full of contradictions. The few brave individuals who try to assert such rights quickly find themselves staring at the prison walls. Almost 90 percent of China's population that lives well beyond subsistence is not given more rights (Gilleys, 2004, p. 47). CCP members claim that "group rights" must be considered, however, not all groups are allowed to organized and claim attention.
Just recently, the Tibet demonstration against the policies of Mainland China was met with resistance from the government. As the leaders of China had promised to its citizens, freedom of expression is one of the key elements of a democratic regime. In the news recently, the demonstration in Tibet injured many. It attracted foreign media attention, unsurprisingly, no local media organizations reported the incident as the way the foreign media reported it. The media is inevitably controlled by the state. As what Premier Wen pointed out in his speech, the media and China's nearly 200 million internet users should participate "as appropriate" in the supervision of the government's work (Thornton, 2008, p. 4). There is a fear induced in every "guided democracy" theme of the Party. The government exercises extensive control over the media through government ownership of outlets and censorship.
However, there are some changes in journalism. In 2002, a veteran reporter for China Economic Times wrote an in-depth account of Beijing taxi-licensing system (Thornton, 2008, p. 15-16). The newspaper sold immediately due to alleged collusion between company owners and the government supervisory body. The story was about the drivers were being forced to work long hours for low wages. As a counter attack of the government the Central Propaganda Bureau responded by banning other publications from reporting on the story. Some taxi drivers who were interviewed in the article received death threats, and the author had to be protected by body guards for three months.
How can citizens exercise their rights if every move they make is being tracked by the authorities? Any actions against the state and its policies will result to imprisonment or killing. Now, is China moving towards democracy?
As we can see it, China is still not democratic. The CCP has still the monopoly on political power, citizens have no freedom of speech and press, no freedom of assembly and other fundamental elements of a liberal system. With China's rise to power relying on its economic growth, we can just hope that as the economy grows and as the international society pays close attention to the happenings in China, its leaders will execute their talk and promises and citizens will fight for democratic regime. It is still uncertain whether China will move toward democracy anytime soon.
