China is a democracy
According to the ruling Communist Party
But don’t expect the right to vote anytime soon.
Welcome to China Uncensored. I’m Chris Chappell.
Did you know China is a democracy? It’s not just a democracy. It’s the best democracy.
Now if you’re a regular viewer of China Uncensored, you might be thinking, “wait,
what?” Because you know China is an authoritarian one-party state.
But what you don’t know is China’s authoritarian one-party state has the best democracy in
the world.
That’s according to a recent speech made by Chinese “president” Xi Jinping .
In which he called China’s political system democratic and just all around swell.
Just a reminder that Xi is a man who calls himself president without having to actually
be elected.
If you’re confused by this, that’s because you’re thinking of the regular kind of democracy,
defined as “a form of government in which people choose leaders by voting.”
But China’s not like a regular democracy, it’s a cool democracy.
And in a cool democracy, you don’t need to vote. No, seriously, *you* don’t need
to vote.
So what’s a cool democracy?
I’m glad you asked. It’s a whole-process democracy in line with socialist consultative
democracy with Chinese characteristics.
Don’t know what that means? Neither does anyone else. Which is why, after Xi Jinping
made that speech about “whole-process democracy”, Chinese state-run media had to run a bunch
of articles explaining it.
You see, “Whole-process democracy is a form of democracy that emerged thanks to the development
of socialism with Chinese characteristics...and continues to develop along with socialism
with Chinese characteristics.”
Are you still confused?
That’s because you’re a Western observer who’s just stereotyping democracy, man.
You can’t understand democracy from a new perspective.
But I understand it. You see, whole-process democracy is about the people.
Everyone knows that any country with “people” in its name, like the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea, or the People’s Republic of China, really cares about people.
It’s in their name!
As Chinese state-run media says, “The [Chinese Communist] Party was established with the
mission to pursue happiness for the people, and over the past 100 years, has stayed true
to its original mission and put people high on the country’s political agenda.”
And as proof of how much the Party cares, “The model of democracy China has been exercising
is not only one designed to serve all people, but is also one that is present in the whole
process in people’s lives.”
Yes, in China, democracy is everywhere in people’s lives.
It’s always...
watching...
you.
See, China’s democracy is not like a stupid Western-style democracy—which “becomes
highly representational during elections, but once the elections are over, democratic
practices start declining.”
“In comparison, whole-process democracy tries to integrate democracy into the whole
process of public life.”
Yeah, in a cool democracy, there are no meaningful elections. You don’t need elections if you
have democracy. Think about it. In fact in China, there’s so much democracy, there
doesn’t need to be any democracy!
More after the break.
Welcome back.
Chinese democracy. It’s not just a long-delayed Guns ‘N Roses album.
The Chinese Communist Party is launching a propaganda effort to redefine democracy.
A big part of that is criticizing Western liberal democracies, and their direct elections.
For years, the Chinese Communist Party has pretended to have elections.
There’s an entire Wikipedia article about China’s electoral system.
I mean, look, there’s Chairman Mao voting! How democratic is that, am I right?
China does not have direct elections for government or Party officials.
But China does have elections for some local village committees, and some local people’s
congresses.
How it supposedly works is that people vote for the *local* people’s congress. Then
the members of the local people’s congress vote for regional people’s congresses. Each
people’s congress votes for the next level up until the National People’s Congress,
or NPC.
But how it actually works is the Chinese Communist Party committees at each level pick the people
who are allowed to “run” for the congress at each level. So if the candidates are all
pre-selected, voting becomes almost meaningless.
And the elections are, well, rigged.
A perfect example of this is how the NPC supposedly “elects” China’s president. But the
president is actually picked by the Chinese Communist Party months ahead of time, because
they pick the head of the Party, who then always becomes the president.
Which leads to hilarious things like this in 2013, when all but one person “voted”
for Xi Jinping for president, and one person voted against him.
That one dissenting voice is just to show you, the election totally wasn’t rigged.
But since most people don’t know how China’s system works, you get misleading headlines
about Xi Jinping being “elected” or “re-elected” president.
That makes China sound like a democracy, right?
Here’s what happens when people try to actually run for local elections in China, without
the backing of the Communist Party.
Back in 2011, Qiao Mu, a journalism professor at the prestigious Beijing Foreign Studies
University, tried to run for his neighborhood People’s Congress.
Qiao was a Communist Party member, but he wasn’t endorsed by the Party to run. Instead,
he tried to run as an independent candidate, which is allowed according to Chinese law.
“His proposals were strictly nonpolitical, such as moving a smelly garbage collection
site.”
But “His department’s Party leader urged him to withdraw, telling him, ‘What you
have said about democracy has made the authorities very angry.’”
You see, the problem with Qiao is he believes in democracy, and says so. Out loud. You can’t
have someone like that run in an election!
Qiao collected 50 times the number of signatures required to get on the ballot, but his university
said two university officials had gotten even more signatures, so they would be the only
names on the ballot.
Then Qiao tried to start a write-in campaign. But his student volunteers started quitting.
“Some said that school officials had telephoned their parents, warning them that their children
were engaged in illegal activities.”
“In the final week before the vote, [Qiao’s] telephone calls were monitored and two security
officers tailed him. Except for e-mail, his Internet tools were disabled.”
Again, this was all to stop a professor from running in a neighborhood People’s Congress
election.
Sometimes I think Communist China is like Kafka and Orwell had a baby. A really disturbing
baby.
Needless to say, Qiao Mu didn’t win his election. Then in 2014, Qiao was banned from
teaching at his university.
And three years later, he left China for the US.
By trying to run in an election using Chinese law, Qiao ended up exposing China’s electoral
system as a lie.
But what’s brilliant about China’s new “whole-process democracy” propaganda,
is that you don’t even need elections! Because remember, elections aren’t true democracy.
This isn’t the first time the Chinese Communist Party has tried changing the definition of
democracy.
Chairman Mao did it first. I’ll tell you more after the break.
Welcome back.
It may surprise you to learn that Mao Zedong was a big fan of democracy.
Or rather, he was a fan of what he called “the people’s democratic dictatorship.”
He made a speech about this back in 1949, to defend the Communist Party.
Mao said there were two groups of people in China: the people, and the reactionaries.
According to Mao, “Democracy is practiced within the ranks of the people, who enjoy
the rights of freedom of speech, assembly, association and so on. The right to vote belongs
only to the people, not to the reactionaries.”
So, two groups of people, one group gets all of the rights, and the other group gets none
of the rights. It’s just like high school.
“The combination of these two aspects, democracy for the people and dictatorship over the reactionaries,
is the people’s democratic dictatorship.”
Like I said: Kafka and Orwell had a baby.
But while Mao was charmingly blunt about the whole dictatorship thing, over the years,
the Chinese Communist Party realized that calling yourself a dictatorship leaves a bad
impression for some reason.
And they came up with a solution: stop being a dictatorship.
Just kidding. They came up with a better solution: continue being a dictatorship, but lie to
the rest of the world about it. Using some beautiful language.
So Xi Jinping says “Democracy, a shared value of humanity, is a key tenet unswervingly
upheld by the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people.”
Hey, that sounds great! Shared values! Democracy!
Except when Xi Jinping says “democracy” he means...not democracy.
But if they can get enough influential people and international organizations to go along
with that lie, they’ve succeeded.
Because who’s to say whether a country is democratic or not? Obviously its own people,
and by people, Xi means the Party. The ruling Communist Party gets to say whether China
is a democracy. Actually, the Party will have really succeeded
when they can convince people that China’s “whole-process democracy” is *better*
than Western democracy.
Which is the argument they’re currently trying to make.
Some people are going to believe the Party. And not just the type of people who think
North Korea or Cuba are better than the US despite having never been to North Korea or
Cuba.
I’m talking about people like Michael Bloomberg, who said while running for president that
Xi Jinping is not a dictator, because he has a constituency he has to listen to.
That’s not too far off from arguing China is a democracy, just a different kind of democracy
than America.
I expect to hear some Wall Street CEO say that any day now.
And now it’s time for me to answer a question from a fan who supports China Uncensored on
the crowdfunding websites Patreon and Locals.
Guercan Fenicle asks: I was wondering if you or probably more so
Shelly (since all Asians are apparently owned by China per the CCP) if you guys were worried
about reprisals while in the US?
Also, in a recent video you said the members of the CCP probably don't watch your channel
BUT, I think your forgetting you are legit now, China Daily ran an article about you!
Add oil!
First of all, I want to make it clear that I am just as worthy of being targeted by the
Chinese Communist Party as Shelley. There’s no good reason for them to attack her instead
of me.
You’re right that people have been harassed by the Chinese regime even in the US. We’ve
talked to many activists who have been threatened in the US, Australia, and other countries.
Often the Chinese regime threatens their family members who are inside China, which is a real
low blow.
So yes, I take precautions. Like living in a bunker 28 floors beneath the Empire State
Building. The Communist Party will never find me there.
Also, thank you for mentioning the China Daily article that called us a “leading Western
media outlet.”
And called us “disgraceful anti-China garbage.”
We’re very proud. However, that article was written by an Italian American freelance
writer.
So it’s not quite the same as being attacked in my favorite Chinese state-run media, the
Global Times .
Someday.
Thanks for your question, Guercan, and thanks for the oil.
And thank you to everyone else who supports China Uncensored. You can either do it on
the community subscription platform Locals.
Or the crowdfunding platform Patreon.
Once again I’m Chris Chappell, thanks for watching China Uncensored.