China wants to create a new democratic system. Is that possible?

"There is no socialism without democracy" - this is not merely a dictum often reiterated in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s publicity messages. It is actually the most basic idea in socialism.

"Insisting that the people be put above all else" was listed as one of the reasons for the CCP's success in the historical resolution adopted last year in conjunction with the party's centennial. The word "insisting" indicates that the party is still upholding something from long ago - i.e., the minben zhuyi (民本主义, people-orientedness) principle of traditional Chinese thought, and not democracy in the modern sense.

The reasons why the democracy issue cannot be avoided can be put into two categories, one domestic and the other external. Pressure from within China comes not only from the People's Republic of China (PRC)'s founding principle of "the people being masters of the country", but also from the urgent need to build an innovative society and to find new driving forces for development.

Under the banner of the "modernisation of the state's governance system and capabilities", the Chinese government has undergone a profound transformation as it re-centralises power, promotes law-based public administration, and institutionalises the anti-corruption effort.

China's local governments are no longer the entrepreneurial governments of the late 20th century and early 2000s. Their passion and motivation for innovation have greatly subsided. There is less mutual learning, rivalry and competition among the localities, which used to be the second engine of the Chinese economic miracle. Now they mostly go by the book.

With this being the case, one has to look to the citizens to find the driving force and continuing impetus for China's advancement. The market and democracy are the two major forces that capitalise on the people's enthusiasm, harness their creativity and draw from the sources of their infinite energy.

In the first three decades after China's reform and opening up began, marketisation played a tremendous role. However, with the onset of the new technological revolution and deepening of globalisation, the laws of the market are changing.

This is prominently evidenced by the fact that opportunities and wealth are being concentrated in a very small minority within the apex elite, the resultant polarisation of wealth and income, as well as the narrowing of the channels of upward mobility caused by a technology-based monopoly.

All these factors threaten social stability. These market distortions require political corrections from broader political participation on the part of the masses, so as to ensure social justice and the inclusiveness of the market economy.

As for external pressure, it is most intensely manifested in the "democracies versus autocracies" face-off that is taking shape in international politics. The Summit for Democracy convened by US President Joe Biden in late 2021 marked the beginning of a united front among democracies.

This has now taken a great step forward, thanks to the current war in Ukraine, which has not only fostered the solidarity of the democratic countries, but also made them see China and Russia as the axis of totalitarian states. (While the claim that "democracies do not fight wars with democracies" may not always be true, democratic politics is characterised by transparency and its long-drawn-out decision-making process. Outsiders can relatively easily discern where the policies of democratic countries are going and, even if they don't like it, there would usually be sufficient time to plan their countermeasures.)

Even though China's foreign policy has generally been quite stable and consistent over the last few decades, other countries are still not put at ease. Once slapped with the label "undemocratic", a state is usually marginalised in the prevailing international discourse. So, even with all its tremendous achievements and contribution to the world economy, China is still seen as a threat. The "peaceful rise of China" is thus handicapped from the start.

But let's not forget one thing: the Summit for Democracy was convened at a time of prevalent crisis for democratic politics itself. Western-style procedural democracy has shown itself to be inept in solving a host of urgent problems, such as income distribution, climate change, healthcare and social insurance, infrastructure-building, various security issues, gun control, poverty and homelessness.

The system often fails to produce public policies pertaining to even commonsensical issues, even when there has long been a common understanding on the matters on hand, all because interest groups exploit the procedures and loopholes of the system. In this way, these players are able to pursue selfish gains openly and harm fairness and justice legally.

Procedures are the rules of the game, the outcomes of which can vary as players are endowed differently with resources. The 2020 US elections, dubbed the most unseemly elections in all of American history, revealed the many defects of procedural democracy.

In electoral politics, the government became the battleground for various interests vying with one another. Different interest groups enjoy different advantages, so it is possible for the legitimate political game to produce a legitimate but bad government. A democratically elected government typically does not have the function of purifying society and leading it forward. Instead, it is pushed along by society, such that its state is determined by the state of society itself.

The crisis of Western-style democracy has given China an opportunity to rise above, to create a better democratic system. However, the CCP's idea of democracy has yet to free itself from the shackles of the Maoist "mass line" (masses-oriented approach).

Mao Zedong's lifelong mission was revolution. This included the armed struggle for power during the period of war, as well as the continued revolution after clinching power. Revolution is dynamic collective action towards clear objectives.

In order to truly lead, constantly deal with new situations and pioneer new undertakings, the CCP has to monopolise political power rather than allowing multi-party competition as in a procedural democracy. The Leninist way is to gather a group of talents to form a highly disciplined vanguard party that is united in thought and will.

It does not rely on power alone, but is to facilitate social progress through leading by example. In a nutshell, it's about having a good party to lead society to betterment.

The mass line is the vanguard party's unique method of connecting with the populace. We may think of it as the CCP's old model of "democracy", employed even till this day.

When Xi Jinping first came to power, he launched a year-long mass line education campaign. He spoke, very much à la Mao, of the need to "respect the people's status as the sovereign, bring the masses' spirit of inventiveness to bear, and closely rely on the people to drive reforms forward".

He also said, "When dealing with difficult issues of interests that involve complex relationships, we need to carefully think about the following: What are the realities of the masses? What are the masses looking forward to? How may their interests be guaranteed? Are they satisfied with our reforms?"

Notably, in the 19th National Congress of the CCP, to the party's usual triad of "political line, ideological line, organisational line" was added "mass line", posited as the way to realise the three preceding items.

In spite of all this, the old model of "putting the people in charge" is beset by three major problems. The first of them is an ancient one that is immense and difficult to tackle - the corruption of power.

Given that there are no hard restraints in the form of vote counts and an upward dependent incentive structure, party members and cadres are free to either serve the people slavishly or ride roughshod over them. As a result, as it had been with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the corrupt politicians' functioning as "exemplars" corrupted the officialdom and degraded the social mores, resulting in popular resentment and the decline of the nation.

The second problem is "political correctness". Both Western electoral democracy and the Maoist mass line sing praises of the hoi polloi without reservation, but they also fail to pay attention to the innate human evil that comes through in the people as they engage in collective action.

One of the reasons for the deterioration of Western democracy is the rampant populism which has resulted from pandering to the masses. In the case of Mao Zedong, the chairman, out of his conviction of "believing in the masses" and "relying on the masses", launched the "Great Cultural Revolution of the Proletariat", only to see the widespread violence it led to rage beyond his control.

Many similar examples can be seen throughout history. (We are reminded of the guillotines of the French Revolution, which in time lopped off so many heads of every persuasion - the Left, Right and Centre.) In all such cases, people let the evil in human nature run wild and destroy long-term accretions of civilisation, all in the name of a sublime cause. They embodied the return of humanity to barbarity.

The third problem is a new one that poses a huge challenge to the traditional mass line. The China of today is no longer an ocean of destitute peasants. With the marketisation of its economy, the country has a complex social structure, characterised by a diversity of interests, the constant emergence of new strata and the multiplication of social conflicts.

The masses of today have wide experiences and are much better educated than they used to be. They are no longer the "proletariat". Instead, they mostly live in plenty, own property and businesses, lead a rich life, and are no longer subservient to the whims and pleasures of party and government officials on a day-to-day basis. Given such pluralism, even how the masses are to be defined is a political question in itself.

With the circumstances being as they are, Maoist "struggle philosophy" and any ideology that draws lines according to class are no longer relevant for the times. The CCP must not engage in class struggle again.

In dealing with the interest relations of various social strata, it must play the role of coordination, accommodation and compromise that take all sides into account. It is to go with the majority and yet not carelessly deprive the minority of their due, because all are an organic part of the market economy.

The articulation of the diverse interests of the masses must be systematic and done in an orderly manner. Effective institutionalised channels need to be established for people from all walks of life to participate in politics and policy making.

Under the demands of proceduralisation, institutionalisation and legal systemisation (法制化), the ruling party - which has defined its role as "steering the overall situation and harmonising the interests of all sides" (总揽全局，协调各方) - is destined to break through the traditional mass line and move towards a kind of socialist neo-democracy.

The crisis of Western-style democracy highlights an oft-neglected factor: the foundational role of a common understanding shared across the entire populace.

When society is tearing itself apart, its divergent interests can hardly be harmonised, identity politics is rampant and society at large no longer shares a common understanding, electoral democracy easily degenerates into a tool in the service of big money and demagogues. As such, it ends up being destructive rather than constructive.

Establishing a common understanding

To build the neo-democracy of Chinese socialism, a broad-based consensus must first be established, so that there are common standards for judging what is right or wrong and harmonising interests of people of various social strata and identities.

The common understanding in question has to be able to accommodate the entire social mosaic. This means the old tradition of drawing lines according to class needs to be abandoned. That is the first point for us to note.

Institutionalising a constructive process

The second point is this: to decide the winner with votes alone is to over-simplify or even vulgarise the ideal of democracy, Chinese-style socialist neo-democracy should be substantive, multi-faceted and multi-channelled, akin to the "whole-process people's democracy" that the CCP is currently exploring.

The "whole-process" concept encompasses democracy within the ruling party, as well as pan-societal democratic elections, democratic decision-making, democratic management, democratic oversight and democratic accountability.

The clashes between people across different sectors and social strata in the process of consultative democracy should generate positive (rather than negative) energy. They are to be constructive, not destructive.

As the low voter turnouts in the elections of democratic countries show us, the common folk are not normally enthusiastic about politics. Thanks to their epistemic make-up, preferences and proclivities, their political participation varies in quality and often yields only satisfactory results.

Even so, in the event that their interests are harmed, they must possess effective means for holding responsible parties accountable - that is to say, an institutionalised way to hand down post-mortem democratic judgements.

Harnessing the virtues of its people and leaders

The third point is this: socialist democracy should be centred around social development. Although Chinese politics is "people-centred" in name, it is in reality centred around the party-state.

When it comes to social governance, the government is all about controlling everything. It is tightly organised, sets up checks on multiple levels, and utilises an endless variety of means. But when it comes to social development, the powers that be can hardly boast of any remarkable accomplishment.

Interestingly, the CCP often speaks of "governing the country with virtue". In personnel appointments, it looks for individuals with "both virtue and competence, with the former given the higher priority". While competence is partly inborn and partly acquired the hard way through diligent study and practice, virtue is something of a social phenomenon, which means it has to be nurtured in a good social environment.

There are both good and evil in human nature; whether it is the former or the latter that gets to show itself more prominently hinges crucially upon how social life is organised. It is socialist democracy's fundamental mission to build a good society - one in which everybody can call home, live in security, feel comfortable mentally and physically, and also realise their potential to the fullest extent.

"Comprehensively governing the party strictly" (全面从严治党), even if it is successfully implemented, is only a castle in the air, yet to be connected to the grassroots. That's because it is not grounded on social democracy.

China should aim at creating a whole new democratic system that combines the strengths of both the government and society at large, allowing each side to leverage its own strengths, steer away from its deficiencies and engage with the other in beneficent interactions. Democracy of this sort would be about putting the good side of the people in charge, not allowing their dark side to wreak havoc.

Of the three points outlined above, the CCP has put a lot of effort into working out the second one and consequently made some progress in that regard. The first point sees little progress because of ideological restrictions. As for the third point, the party has yet to pivot away from the traditional control-obsessed line of thought. In fact, with its baffling stance against civil society, it is working hard in the opposite direction.

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