China has taught the world that democracy is not one-dimensional and it can take various forms. Election is a common and important feature of the Western democracy, but it is characterised by weak governance due to short-term planning and lack of people-centred political stances. However, not all Western democracies have the same type of governance system: different countries adopt different models.
China’s Constitution states that all power of the state belongs to the people. The National People’s Congress (NPC) and local people’s congresses at all levels are the organs through which the people exercise state power. The people’s congresses at all levels are constituted through democratic elections, and they are responsible to the people. The executive and judicial organs of the state are created by the people’s congresses, to which they are responsible to. In addition to legislative functions, the NPC has the power to amend the Constitution, supervise the enforcement of laws, and approve economic plans and budgets.
In short, the functioning of the people’s congress system refutes the notion that China does not provide a platform for people to elect their representatives.
The importance of the people’s congress system in China’s governance is elaborated on in the fourth volume of Xi Jinping: The Governance of China. In the book, Chinese President Xi Jinping said, “The people’s congress system is an important institutional vehicle for realising whole-process people’s democracy in China. Under CPC leadership, we should continue to expand orderly political participation by the people, strengthen legal protection for human rights, and ensure that the people enjoy extensive rights and freedoms as prescribed by law. We should ensure that the people can exercise their lawful right to elect people’s congress deputies through democratic election, that the people’s rights to information, participation, expression and oversight are implemented in every aspect of the work of people’s congresses, and that the people’s voice can be heard at every step in the process of making, executing and scrutinising the decisions of the Party and the state (P. 300-301).”
This elaboration shows how China’s people’s congress system works and how it can realise people-centred governance in China. It can help us to better understand China’s whole-process people’s democracy.
The people’s congress system is crucial for China to realise the whole-process people’s democracy, which integrates process-oriented democracy with results-oriented democracy, procedural democracy with substantive democracy, direct democracy with indirect democracy, and the people’s democracy with the will of the state. It is a democracy that covers all aspects of the democratic process and all sectors of society, and is the broadest, most genuine and most effective socialist democracy.
The people’s congress system is collaborative in nature. It also receives advice from the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which in turn consults other political parties and groups in playing an advisory role. This means besides the CPC, other parties and groups are also included in China’s legislation and policymaking.
Institutional set-up
China is a whole-process people’s democracy. President Xi stressed that whether a country is democratic should be judged by its own people, not by a handful of meddlesome outsiders. In the international community, whether a country is democratic should be judged by community consensus, not by a few self-appointed judges.
“There is no uniform or single model of democracy; it comes in many forms. It is undemocratic in itself to measure the world’s diverse political systems against a single criterion, or to view the colourful political civilisations of humanity from a single perspective (P. 298),” Xi said.
He stresses that “the people’s support is our top priority (P. 66).” He cites the management of COVID-19 as an example of governance through which “an all-out people’s war on the virus” was launched. Overall, President Xi concludes that the people’s congress is an institutional system for democracy.
President Xi says that the government must “deliver tangible results and real benefits to the people.” The International Monetary Fund predicts that China’s economy will grow at a rate of up to 5 percent in 2024, which will make it one of the fastest growing economies in the world. This is just one of the many examples of how China’s democratic governance serves the interests of its people.
Implications for Africa
While China wants to remain modest, with its leaders and scholars consistently saying that its development model is not immediately replicable, and while Western commentators spread the propaganda that smear China as a neo-colonist in Africa, Africans need to take the best of what works in other parts of the world and design programmes that work for their people. China’s history and development shows that through mission-oriented leadership and focus on building state institutions with dynamic capabilities to execute national mandates, nations can achieve higher levels of growth and development.
Each country has a unique history, and people make choices about their national political systems. Some countries, like China, have used their history and democratic choices as leverage to advance their economies – thus making their people’s democracy work. In it there are experiences for Africa and the Global South in general. Through platforms like Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), such experiences can be learned in a structured manner.
The people of Africa will defend FOCAC and other progressive Global South initiatives like BRICS+ if they produce welfare gains and help to reduce poverty and unemployment in Africa, as it has happened in China. To a degree, these multilateral platforms are akin to peoples’ congresses, given that they represent the aspirations of the people of Africa and China.
The author is Principal of National School of Government, South Africa. African Times has published this article in partnership with ChinAfrica Magazine.
