China's pursuit of 'high-quality democracy'

On December 4, 2021, China's State Council Information Office released a white paper titled China: Democracy That Works. The document pointed out that China's whole-process people's democracy is a model of socialist democracy that covers all aspects of the democratic process and all sectors of society and that it is a true democracy that works.

In October 2019, Yukteshwar Kumar, deputy mayor of Bath city in the United Kingdom, visited Changle village, Xiadong township, Chalin county, Hunan province, where he understood the significance of people's full participation in governance. He said that after the implementation of precise poverty alleviation, the villagers'?committee organized forums?with village representatives to develop poverty alleviation measures one-on-one based on?the specific situation of each area and household to solve their problems, fully promoting community-level?democracy and mobilizing public participation.

According to Daryl Guppy, Australia-China Business Council NT Branch president, from political party consultations involving major national policies to community-level consultations about people's daily life, China is expanding the channels of consultative democracy and promoting democratic institutions and practices throughout people's lives.

"China's democratic practice integrates process-oriented democracy with results-oriented democracy, procedural democracy with substantive democracy, and direct democracy with indirect democracy, to truly address the issues that the people want to resolve."

Zhang Shuhua, director of the Institute of Political Science at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said: "Compassion for the people, efforts to rally people's strength, and the development of people's livelihood constitute China's real democracy. China's view of democracy will strike a chord with more countries around the world, especially developing countries."

China has built the world's largest social security system, with more than 1.3 billion people covered by basic medical insurance and 1 billion people covered by basic pension insurance. The country has successfully built a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and its people have completely shaken off absolute poverty and are heading towards common prosperity.

UN Secretary-General Guterres praised China for its important contribution to global poverty reduction.

Wang Linggui, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that the historic solution to absolute poverty, which has plagued China for more than five millenniums, has been unseen in human history. "The UN has a 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and our country is 10 years ahead of the timetable set by the UN," said Wang.

The Chinese system has proved to be remarkable in getting things done for China's 1.4 billion people. It has given the country vigor and vitality, allowing the Chinese society to show a vivid picture where democracy and centralism, and dynamism and order coexist, and promoting the continuous development of China's economy and society.

"The paths to happiness are not all the same, and all peoples have the right to choose their own development path and institutional model. The right of choice itself is integral to people's happiness. Whether a country is democratic or not is to be judged by the people of that country."

Dmitry Novikov, deputy chairman of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party, said that China puts the people first and that "whole-process democracy is a high-quality people's democracy."