Democracy is the common value of mankind and the hallmark of modern civilized society. Since its founding, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has taken it as its mission to ensure that people are the masters of their own country. In recent years, many public opinion polls have shown that the Chinese government enjoys a high level of trust among its citizens, which is unparalleled compared with other governments or political parties.
In January 2022, leading international public relations consultancy firm Edelman released the “Edelman Trust Barometer 2022,” which revealed that public trust in the Chinese government surged to 91 percent in 2021, up nine percentage points year-on-year. China also topped the ranking for a second time. Harvard University polls have over many years in a row found that 90 percent of Chinese people are satisfied with their government.
The whole-process people’s democracy is a major concept put forward by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, and is China’s answer to the important question of “whither the world democracy?”
During his report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC, Xi pointed out that the whole-process people’s democracy is the defining feature of socialist democracy and that it is also democracy in its broadest, most genuine and most effective form.
In China, the whole-process people’s democracy not only has a complete institutional framework, but it also features a complete set of participatory practices.
For example, since the reform and opening-up, the voter turnout in China’s general elections to the people’s congresses at the county and township levels has been hovering at around 90 percent. This effectively reflects the true will of the people.
Various parts of China nowadays have explored diverse forms of consultative democracy based on local realities, such as democratic consultation meetings, villagers’ councils, residents’ workshops, courtyard discussions, neighborhood meetings and so on. This brings into play the important role of consultative democracy in understanding public sentiments, solving people’s problems, and thereby achieving wider political participation and effective expression of public opinion.
The whole-process people’s democracy is a high-quality democracy with an emphasis on both development and quality.
China has also established an effective working system for solving people’s problems. This has resulted in an efficient process of listening to people’s voices, analyzing issues, assigning tasks, giving feedback and checking results, enabling people to have their voices heard and their concerns addressed in a timely manner.
China is promoting the whole-process people’s democracy – a real, extensive and effective democracy, unlike some countries which engage in “plutocracy, money politics and oligarchic democracy” in the guise of democracy.
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