As many of you may know, China recently released a white paper on “democracy.”  The release is a stunning acknowledgement of the power of democracy — as an idea which can make or break a nation.  China would not bother releasing the paper if the CPC believed in an absolutist ideological war with the U.S. (and the West) like its predecessor the Soviet Union. No, the CPC understands the power of democracy in abstract, and would rather redefine the term:

Democratic rule means that the CPC sticks to the principle of ruling the country for the people and relying on the people in its rule, guarantees that the people are the masters of the state, upholds and improves the people’s democratic dictatorship and the democratic centralism of the Party and the state, and promotes people’s democracy by enhancing inner-Party democracy. [VIII]

This is from the full text English translation of “Building of Political Democracy in China” via People’s Daily Online, and it shows how China’s leaders are not only aware of the power of democracy as a polity motivator but are prepared to be active in the global dialogue concerning democracy.  China is not going to attack the rather vague concepts surrounding democracy, but is going to institute a new definition.  And, China is going to explain, in more detail than the current Administration of the U.S. now provides, how democracy is dependent on: material necessities; solid, physical fact; and the rule of law:

The history and reality of human political civilization have proved that there is no one single and absolute democratic mode in the world that is universally applicable. To say whether a political system is democratic or not, the key is to see whether the will of the overwhelming majority of the people is fully reflected, whether their rights as masters of the country are fully realized, and whether their legitimate rights and interests are fully guaranteed.

The arduous explorations and struggles made by the Chinese people over the past 100 years and more in order to realize democracy, and especially China’s success in building a socialist political democracy, have made the CPC and the Chinese people realize that China must base the building of political democracy on its reality, review its own experience gained in practice, treasure its own achievements, and learn from the experience and achievements of the political civilization of other countries. But, it must not copy any model of other countries. [Conclusion]

 And:

In practice, the CPC sticks to scientific and democratic rule and rule in accordance with the law, constantly reforms and improves the leadership system and working mechanism, and, acting on the principle that the ruling party commands the overall situation and coordinates the efforts of all quarters, standardizes relations between Party committees and the people’s congresses, the governments, the CPPCC organizations as well as the mass organizations. [VIII]

 And:

The people’s rights to subsistence and development are guaranteed. The CPC focuses on economic construction and has made tremendous efforts to realize the people’s rights to subsistence and development. After more than 50 years of hard work, two great historical leaps have been accomplished in people’s life — from being poverty-stricken to having enough food and clothing, and then to reaching the moderately well-off stage. China has successfully solved the problem of feeding 22 percent of the world’s population with less than 10 percent of the world’s arable land. From 1979 to 2004, China’s economy kept growing rapidly. Its GDP soared from US$147.3 billion to US$1,650 billion, exceeding US$1,200 per person. The annual per-capita income of urban residents rose 5.5 times in real terms, and that of rural residents, 5.9 times. The average housing space per person increased from 6.7 sq m to 25 sq m in urban areas, and from 8.1 sq m to 28 sq m in rural areas. The rural poverty-stricken population went down from 250 million to 26.1 million. The Chinese people’s overall health level has surpassed the average of countries with a moderate level of income, leading most developing countries in this aspect. The people’s average life expectancy was raised from 35 years before the founding of New China in 1949 to nearly 72 years in 2004. The mortality rate of pregnant women and women in childbirth decreased from 1,500 per 100,000 before 1949 to 48.3 per 100,000 in 2004; and the infant mortality rate also dropped — from 200 per 1,000 before 1949 to 21.5 per 1,000 in 2004. In recent years, the Chinese government has promulgated and implemented a series of regulations and measures, such as the National Plan for the Construction of an Information System for Public Health Monitoring and the National Plan for the Construction of a System for Medical Rescue and Treatment in Public Health Emergencies, thus greatly strengthening the protection of citizens’ rights to health and life. [VII]

And:

With the goal of establishing a mechanism for the exercise of power featuring a rational structure, scientific disposition, rigorous procedures and effective restraint, the CPC has combined reinforcing the building of the system of restraint over power with effective supervision over cadres. [VIII]

This is, of course, an apologia, and sounds almost as if it could have been lifted from a shareholders meeting: it is no impassioned speech, but a reframing of the Marxist dream in modern terms.  But it does provide the framework for a restructuring of the idea of “democracy,” as well.  Journalists and pundits have focused on such terminology as “people’s democratic dictatorship” and on the well-known Internet censorship and other human rights violations in China without understanding the Chinese concept of human rights and democracy. The white paper explicitly outlines the Chinese concept:

China’s democracy is a democracy with democratic centralism as the basic organizational principle and mode of operation. Democratic centralism is the fundamental principle of organization and leadership of state power in China. When democratic centralism is practiced, it requires that we give full play to democracy and discuss matters of concern collectively, so that people’s wishes and demands are fully expressed and reflected. Then, all the correct opinions are pooled, and decisions are made collectively so that the people’s wishes and demands are realized and met. The practice of democratic centralism also requires that “the majority be respected while the minority is protected.” We are against the anarchic call for “democracy for all,” and against anybody placing his own will above that of the collective. [I]

Many Western thinkers tend to view successful democracy in terms of human rights for individuals.  Western Democracy is a top-down success:  First, begin with broad-based human rights, expansive individual freedom, and then everything else will work itself out. In America, democracy was set long ago; we just need to let it continue.

Chinese leaders view successful democracy as a community project and impossible unless that community is protected.  Democracy, the CPC acknowledges, was not handed down the generations (although it has developed gradually from the efforts of previous generations), is incomplete, and an ongoing process:

Despite the tremendous achievements scored in building a socialist political democracy, the CPC and the Chinese people are clearly aware of the many problems yet to be overcome. The major ones include: The democratic system is not yet perfect; the people’s right to manage state and social affairs, economic and cultural undertakings as masters of the country in a socialist market economy are not yet fully realized; laws that have already been enacted are sometimes not fully observed or enforced, and violations of the law sometimes go unpunished; bureaucracy and corruption still exist and spread in some departments and localities; the mechanism of restraint and supervision over the use of power needs further improvement; the concept of democracy and legal awareness of the whole society needs to be further enhanced; and the political participation of citizens in an orderly way should be expanded. [Conclusion]

These comments are stated in the official white paper.  This is significant.  However, the call for greater, improved democracy is not, as some might hope, an indication that China’s leaders secretly plan a Western-style democracy; nor, as others might like to believe, are the comments mere propaganda.  In combination with the endorsement of “democratic centralism,” these comments point to something else, something that hasn’t quite been seen on the planet. Because they have been issued, the comments go beyond acknowledging the power of the idea of democracy, and move into the realm of trying to shape that idea anew. In the West, democracy is perpetually abstract, and even in the longest running modern democracy, no one can quite agree on whether abortion should be legal, whether gays should have a right to marry, whether cancer patients should be allowed to smoke marijuana. In the West, we speak in abstract about equal representation while assigning to the losers no representation in government. We don’t know what freedom is, quite. We perpetually bicker, because everyone has a right to dispute everything, and they do; and so, we have moved into partisan deadlock.  China wishes to avoid this.  I suspect that Chinese citizens want more freedoms — they are certainly more willing to protest, of late — but also fear the promise of an absolute freedom to each of their billion+ neighbors.

The CPC has many faults and may ultimately fail to manage a polity on the verge of emergence.  What will emerge?  That is the question China’s leaders are trying to answer.