Introduction

The democracy summit will be convened next month by USA. Its attempt is to revitalize Western multi party democracy amid mounting problems in these countries. USA is claiming that multi party democracy is the only real democracy to delegitimize the Communist Party of China. This is part of the greater plan for containment of China. Senior Chinese official, Jiang Jinquan said that the objective of the summit is to suppress nations like China, Russia, Iran, Belarus, North Korea, Venezuela which West refuses to accept as democracy and hence divide world into two camps for Cold War 2.0. He further claimed that democracy prevailing in West is actually the democracy of rich capitalists. He stressed that the people's democracy of China is deeply ingrained in the minds of the Chinese people and imported version of Western democracy will never work in China or any country of the world. In this piece we will try to find out why USA and China is exchanging barbs on democracy. Here we will discuss in details what is the difference between Western multi party democracy and Chinese people-centered democracy, how Western democracy and Chinese democracy have evolved overtime. Then we will discuss the performances of these two systems. Finally we will discuss if they can coexist or will they have to end up in mortal combat.

Comparison between Western and Chinese Democracies

Democracy broadly means a system of government in which policies of state or any of the state's organs are directly or indirectly decided by the people. But question comes who are the people and how can they decide policy making. For West today all adult citizens are people. They have right to cast votes, to contend election and get elected. Since anybody can seek to make policy, there must be competition among those who want to get elected to chart out policies. West evolved in a way that different individuals organized into different political parties and then competed in elections. So for West democracy works only under multi party electoral system where everybody's rights to vote and contest elections to become policy maker are preserved. For China today all adult citizens are people exactly as in West. But anybody do not have right to become policy maker in China. China says to give people benefit of democracy only best suited individuals can hope to become policy makers. An individual must fulfill some criteria to become policy makers. This criteria is guided by the ruling Communist Party of China. Chinese refused to copy Western system on the grounds that a worst policy maker can come to power if anybody is allowed to contend elections. Any individual using his money power, demagogy and showmanship can trick people to cast votes in his or her favor. But there is no guaranty that this same person is a good policy maker. A good policy maker not necessarily has to be a rich man or demagogue or ideal showman. In most cases he won't and so country will fail to get the best policy maker in its government. It must be remembered that Marxism Leninism, the guiding philosophy of the Communist Party of China focuses on the fact that in multi party electoral system, all prominent political parties are led by rich people and so only rich people or their agents can contest elections and become policy makers. Hence Communist Party wants to ensure this does not happen in China and majority working class people get maximum chance to design policies. Also China has age old practice of selecting administrators and policy makers through civil service examinations called keju. So Chinese traditionally believe that only people with merit must become policy makers. Another important historical difference between West and China must also be taken into account. In pre modern times, Western rulers ruled by Divine rights conferred by the God upon them. But in pre modern China, rulers earned mandate of Heaven by doing good work and could loss the mandate if failed to perform properly. Chinese people could revolt if mandate of Heaven is lost by the ruler. So Chinese traditionally think about rulers' performance as the basis of its legitimacy. Thus Chinese system is more concerned about ruler's performance for keeping legitimacy while Western system is more concerned about getting consent from the people rather than actually performing for the people. Hence China strictly rejects Western model of democracy on three grounds: to prevent policy making from becoming a tool of the rich class, to ensure that only meritorious people can become policy makers, to have a government that performs for the people. China also rejects imposition of Western democracy upon any other country. China also believes different countries have different history, practice and institutions and so democracy will evolve in different countries in different ways. So China will never impose its own kind of democracy on other countries too. Now we come to next point. How Western and Chinese democracies gradually evolved over time? We will discuss evolution of democracy in two earliest democracies of West i.e. England and USA.

Evolution of Democracy in England

Crusade Wars imposed huge taxation on West Europeans. This resulted in many rebellion against tax imposition in the late 12th century especially in England. Finally in 1215, English barons and bishops rose to rebellion and forced the English King to accept the charter of Magna Carta which means bishops and barons must be consulted by the king in the Great Council before imposition of new tax. The barons of the Great Council were selected by the king till 1253 but by 1254 elected knights started to adorn the Great Council. By 1258, the Great Council meetings were regularized. In 1265 when the king refused to convene the Great Council there was a rebellion which forced the king to call the Great Council. This is often called Second Great Council or Parliament. In 1295 besides adding nobles and bishops as members of the Parliament, each of England's and Wales' counties were asked to send two elected representatives who had to be knights. In the 14th century nobles and bishops formed House of Lords while elected representatives formed House of Commons. Elected representatives in this century were mostly big estate owners and not necessarily knights. Parliament began to approve all taxation by 1362. Parliament became powerful enough to impeach the king's advisors in 1376 and even disposed King Richard II and put Henry IV in throne in 1399. King Henry IV immediately allowed elected representatives in House of Lords. His son King Henry V made law which said Parliament approval is needed for any new laws to be enacted in 1414. In the same century Henry VI formalized that big estate owners could cast votes and become elected representatives but small land owners or property-less people could not do the same. In the 16th century Parliament members Thomas More raised voice for freedom of speech while Puritan Peter Westworth called for freedom of religion but both were imprisoned. Puritans had to flee England for New World (now USA) after this incident. At the height of religious tensions between Protestantism and Catholicism, in the 17th century, English Parliament disposed king by barring any individual having Catholic faith from becoming king. English Parliament sent army for defeating French Revolutionary Republic repeatedly to prevent universal voting rights for all adults from spreading across Europe including England. In 1832 Representation of People Act was passed by the English Parliament which allowed anybody paying annual tax of Pound 10 or more would be allowed to vote and get elected. Moreover, in the same act, women were formally barred from voting or getting elected. Before this act, women of rich families could though rarely caste vote or get elected. Even after this act, in 1867 only 1 million out of 7 million adult men of England and Wales could vote and get elected. It was only in 1867 that Second Reforms Act was passed which allowed all adult men to caste vote and get elected. After World War I, in 1918 adult women got rights to vote and get elected.

Evolution of Democracy in USA

After USA got independence in 1776 only land owning adult men most of whom were white protestants could vote and get elected. Only the state of New Jersey gave voting rights to any individual both men and women having a minimum amount of property but rights of women and African Americans were cancelled in 1807. In 1790 Naturalization Law was passed where white migrants were made citizens and voters. New Hampshire wiped out property requirements for being voters in 1792. In 1848, Mexicans were given citizenship but not voting rights. In 1856 all adult white men were allowed to vote without any property ownership requirement in entire USA. In 1868, after end of US Civil War, 14th Amendment was passed granting citizenship to all former slaves who were mostly African Americans. It was up to states to decide if newly freed African American men could vote or not. In 1870 law was passed which said nobody can be barred from voting because of race. But white racists resorted to violence, literacy tests and voting taxes to exclude African Americans from voters. In 1876 US Supreme Court barred Native Americans from casting votes and in 1897 Dawes Act allowed them to be voters only if they gave up their tribal affiliations. Again, Native Americans who served US Army in World War I were granted citizenship by 1919 but voting rights were denied in 1924. In 1882 Chinese immigrants who created the great US railways were denied voting rights. In 1920, 19th Amendment allowed all American adult women to vote and get elected. Japanese and Asian Indians were denied citizenship in 1922. Even in 2000, 4.1 million people of Puerto Rico, Gaum, Virgin Islands, American Samoa were denied the right to vote.

Evolution of Democracy in China

In the 16th century West found new sea route to Asian production powerhouse of China, South Asia and South East Asia skipping the old Silk Road. But Westerners found that Asian kingdoms could offer so much which they wanted but they could not offer anything which Asians need. Asia's huge population and five thousand years of agrarian artisan merchant tradition made its kingdoms far more superior producers compared to the very young civilization of West. So West reacted in two ways. On the one hand West tried to make itself more productive by changing ownership pattern of means of production and relations of production and on the other hand West resorted to piracy, loot, murder, conquest of Asia, Africa, Americas which is called colonialism. In 1840s Qing China capitulated before the might of West in Opium Wars. Chinese people understood their age old civilization was not strong enough to face the might of young Western civilization. So China sought to tackle the situation in two ways. On the one hand they explored their own tradition to strengthen themselves and on the other hand they tried to adapt best of Western values to stand against Western colonialism. After hundred years of struggle China finally defeated imperialist powers and established itself as a sovereign state under the leadership of Communist Party of China (CPC). CPC's success came from the perfect assimilation of the best of Chinese traditional and Western values. For example, China embraced Marxism Leninism from West but also used Chinese reality of peasant based society and did New Democratic Revolution. China also witnessed that multi party electoral democracy copied from West did not yield any good result. China learnt from Soviet political system where party guides government to achieve desired results. CPC learnt from experience the power of market economy and competition, global market and Western technology. But CPC did not forget the strengths of planning. Mao led CPC helped China to defeat imperialists and feudal class. Next Mao did land reforms and created basic infrastructure that produced an educated healthy working class. But Mao's Cultural Revolution, Great Leap Forward and sticking to planned economy and state ownership did not produce good results. In 1980s Deng Xiaoping understood that China's huge educated healthy working class can raise productive forces of China to the level of West by using superior Western technology and bigger global market. Deng also allowed more room for private ownership while keeping core sectors under state ownership. Jiang Jemin and Hu Jintao carried on Deng's legacy. But after 2007 financial crisis, it was clear that Chinese manufacturing base had become too big to depend on global market. Thus CPC had to shift focus to the creation of internal market. Between 2008 and 2013, China built many domestic infrastructures through state owned bank's credit. These investments are often not directly profitable but they produce huge internal demand for Chinese manufacturers. Then came Xi Jinping. He is focusing on reduction of economic inequality, environmental problems and excessive non performing credit. He also started sharing prosperity with rest of the world through Belt & Road Initiative. Xi faced tremendous US backlash through tariff and technology blockade. This is because the US has begun to feel that it will loss number one power status to China. This only strengthened CPC's motivation to lead world against US imperialism. China under Xi thus started devising plans to become self sufficient in high-tech industries. We must understand that the US attack on CPC on grounds of democracy is actually part of this containment of China policy to preserve its number one position.

Performance of Western and Chinese Democracies

According to a survey from the Pew Research Centre, 57 percent of global respondents and 72 percent of Americans said that US democracy used to be a good example but has not been recently. According to an NPR poll, 81 percent of US adults say the future of US democracy is under threat. In contrast, two recent polls released by a US polling agency show that Chinese people’s satisfaction with the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government is 95 percent and 98 percent, respectively. This shift in opinion in favor of China and against West, is partly due to the fact that China has seen 30 times growth in per capita income in the last three decades while West has mostly stagnated. It can be said that China has started from a lower base and so it has chance to get stagnated once it reaches the level of Western per capita income. We have to wait to see if China stagnates like West when it matches Western per capita income level or if China continues to grow. If China succeeds under Xi to produce a qualitative and balanced growth with self sufficiency in high-tech industries, then China will surely outperform West.

At the moment without any ifs and buts we can say that China has outperformed all Third World countries that follow Western model of democracy. And till now no country is showing performance even close to China. It must be remembered in this context that South Korea and Taiwan too showed high growth when it did not adapt Western model of democracy. In fact, their growth have slowed down after adapting Western democracy. On the other hand, India which has adapted Western democracy for seven decades has failed to register enough growth which can be comparable to China. India has continued to remain one of the most poor region in the world and its per capita income has grown hardly 4 times in the last three decades. It must be recalled that India is a multi religious, multi linguistic country. Western democracy has resulted in a condition where largest ethnicity Hindi speakers with 46% share of population are determining who will be in power of central government while non Hindi speakers with 56% population share but fragmented into many ethnicities like Bengali (8%), Marathis (7%), Telegus (6%), etc. have become redundant. So most central government policies are highly pro Hindi. Central government is literally taxing the coastal non Hindi provinces and subsidizing Hindi provinces in form of more revenue allocation to Hindi provinces, more job and business opportunities for Hindi speakers, etc. So here is a clear sign how Western model of democracy is creating injustice and inefficiency in India. India's land laws are another hurdle for development as government cannot take lands for industries and infrastructures from private land owners if the later do not want to sell. India's labor laws too is giving rise to inefficiency in labor market. But Indian major political parties cannot speak too much against existing land laws and labor laws as that will hurt their vote bank and hence reduce their chances to get elected.

Conclusion

We have first compared between Western model and Chinese model of democracies. Then we discuss how democracy evolved in England, USA and China. Finally we compare the performances of Western model and Chinese model. Clearly China has fared better than Western democracies. Moreover, evolution of Western democracies show rights of voting and getting elected gradually expanded over time from rich white men only to all adult people. Severe formal restrictions on some sections of the population came too. So Western democracy must not be considered to remain same in future as it is today. So surely Western democracy can change itself by learning from Chinese democracy. Similarly, Chinese democracy too transformed over time from Mao to Deng and from Deng to Xi. Chinese democracy can also learn a lot from Western democracy but nobody needs to copy the other. As more countries of Global South will develop, new models of democracy can emerge as well. West must never think that its model of democracy is superior as this model has failed in many countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya. We must keep in mind how import of Western democracy caused disaster in per capita income of Russia in 1990s. USSR had many ideological, geographical and economic weaknesses which led to its downfall. But China do not have those weaknesses and hence West must stop thinking in the light of USA vs USSR cold war.

This Article Was Published In Chinese Academy of Social Science in January 2023

Author: Saikat Bhattacharya