People's Democracy: How does 'whole-process people's democracy' work in China?

Thank you. [Music] This is CGTN, China Global Television Network. [Music] Service. [Music] Thank you. [Music] What is democracy? The word democracy comes from two Greek words: demos, meaning people, and kratos, meaning power. So democracy can be thought of as power of the people, a way of governing that depends on the will of the people. Democracy is one of mankind's greatest achievements, but for democracy to thrive and grow, it must also adapt. China practices the whole process people's democracy, which not only means that people engage in democratic elections, but they're also involved in consultations, decision making, management, and oversight. [Music] Foreign. [Music] I have traveled to many parts of the world for news stories. I've seen democracy in the West and in the East. China practices a whole process people's democracy. This may raise eyebrows among Westerners who assume China's political system can in no way be democratic, but that is a big misunderstanding about China. If we compare Chinese democracy with, say, Western democracy or, in particular, American democracy, the key difference is we focus far more on substantial democracy, while they place more emphasis on procedural democracy. And in the West, at least in real practice, democracy is more or less equivalent to one person, one vote, universal suffrage plus multi-party system. But the Chinese approach is a much more sophisticated, reflecting the Chinese cultural traditions. We focus far more on the purpose, objectives of democracy, especially good governance and what the system can deliver to the people. To be more specific, whole process democracy encourages the expansion of democratic channels and to diversify the forms of democracy so as to ensure that people can participate in the management of state, economic, cultural, and social affairs. It also ensures that people's congresses at all levels are formed through democratic elections and guarantees that people's congresses and their standing committees lawfully exercise the powers of enacting laws, conducting oversight, making decisions, and appointing and removing officials. It improves the working mechanisms for drawing on public opinion and pooling the wisdom of the people. And these are not just words. When Chinese leaders say something, they mean it and take actions to turn that into reality. How does whole process people's democracy work in China? We traveled from remote villages to baseline cities to find the answer. [Music] Well, I mean, this is Wishing, you a grassroots cadre of Ho Chun Village in East China's Jejiang Province. The village, with about 1,500 residents, is undergoing a renewal project to reallocate and redesign its housing land to upgrade the villagers' living conditions and ramp up the growth of the rural economy. In China, the land use right in rural areas is free and can be passed on to descendants or heirs, making the housing land one of the most basic and important resources for Chinese farmers. Villagers pay a lot of attention to its progress. They are watching closely to see if the village leaders do this in a just manner. So for this kind of big issue, we used to organize democratic consultation meetings to collect everyone's views and bring them to the village meetings to make decisions. Those who had sold their land use rights shouldn't be qualified again for future distribution of the housing land. The only way is to let them make economic compensation for the village. And the consultation meeting is convened every month to better tackle village affairs by inviting more to join in. At the early stage, the meeting participants are selected according to the One Plus Eight Plus X system. One and eight are fixed people, while X varies according to the issues discussed. So one stands for the party branch secretary. It includes all the different groups of people in the village. Views are heard and discussed and then reflected in a draft decision that will be passed on to the village representatives meeting, the highest level consultation meeting in a village, for further discussion and voting. Deep in the night, the revised compensation scheme for the renewal project gets passed with more than half the village representatives voting yes. What we've seen in the village of Ho Chen is actually a very important part of the Chinese democratic system. That is the consultative democracy at the grassroots level. China has explored the different forms of democratic consultations based on different levels of decision-making process. The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, or CPPCC, China's highest level advisory body, plays a vital role in China's consultative democracy. It encourages active participation in the deliberation and administration of state affairs, promoting the democratic and scientific decision-making process of the party and the state. [Music] The CPPCC has more than 3,200 organizations at four administrative levels: national, provincial, city, and county, with more than 600,000 CPPCC members from 34 areas, including eight other political parties and representatives from science and technology, literature and art, economics, sports, religion, and other areas. Few people in Western countries want to acknowledge that the Communist Party of China is not the only political party in China at all. In addition to the CPC, there are eight other democratic parties. I actually belong to one of them, and I'm very proud of my party affiliation. Further, there is a very large Chamber of Commerce which caters to business owners, private business owners, etc. And then further, there is a larger group of people called people without political affiliations. I think any political matter which eventually is put into execution as a policy, for example, they need to be vetted and eventually verified and endorsed and supported not only by the CPC members but all the other eight democratic parties as well as the Chamber of Commerce and the group which we call the people without party affiliations. And the democratic participation by the people of all walks of life in this exercise of political rights actually covers all aspects of decision making as well as implementation, supervision, and eventually verification. You name it. And this is the only way why China has achieved such explosive productivity, efficiency, and economic and political transformation over a short period of only about 43 years. Going to build an entire National Exchange Center, but how to achieve that? Then the patient municipal government really comes to CPPCC members to form the concrete recommendations based on our half year of analysis, research, consultations, site visits, you know, all those things. And then we put up the proposal to the municipal government. And I remember in the 2021 Beijing International Service Expo, Aging Bureau of Commerce Chief actually came to announce that you're going to add a new number of joint venture hospitals, going to open more international schools. There's a lot of, you know, measures taken, you know. So you can see how CPPCC can play actual role there. Thank you. In China, public views matter, and not only in policy making but also in legislation. This is Township in Chaoyang District. This is our legislation liaison station. Usually, all deputies at the municipal, district, and township level will have training and exchanges at this liaison station. Foreign. There are 43 community-level legislation liaison stations like this one in the Chaoyang District, the largest and the most populous urban area in Beijing. In China, when a draft law is released, it is subject to public review. I keep a close eye on revised law and protection of rights and interest of women. The liaison station issued questionnaires for us to select residence feedback. Online questionnaires were released to community residents to solicit their feedback and reflect legislation demands at the grassroots level. Offline, we visited households to collect relevant suggestions. Altogether, there were 26 separate submissions to reflect the wider society's will in l

of the people a way of governing that depends on the will of the people democracy is one of Mankind's greatest achievements but for democracy to thrive and grow it must also adapt China practices the whole process people's democracy which not only means

that people engage in Democratic elections but they're also involved in consultations decision making management and oversight [Music] foreign [Music] I have traveled to many parts of the world for news stories I've seen democracy in the west and in the east

China practices a whole process people's democracy this may raise eyebrows among westerners who assume China's political system can in no way be Democratic but that is a big misunderstanding about China if we compare Chinese Democracy with say Western democracy or in particular

American democracy the key difference is we focus far more on substantial democracy well they Place more emphasis on procedural democracy and in the west at least in real practice democracy is more or less equivalent to one person when both universal suffrage

plus multi-party system but the Chinese approach is a much more sophisticated reflecting the Chinese Cultural traditions we focus far more on the purpose objectives of democracy especially good governance and what the sister can deliver to the people to be more specific whole process

democracy encourages the expansion of democratic channels and to diversify the forms of democracy so as to ensure that people can participate in the management of State economic cultural and social affairs it also ensures that people's congresses at all levels are formed through

Democratic elections and guarantees that people's congresses and their standing committees lawfully exercise the powers of enacting loss conducting oversight making decisions and appointing and removing officials it improves the working mechanisms for drawing on public opinion and pooling the wisdom of the people

and the leads are not just words when Chinese leaders say something they mean it and take actions to turn that into reality how does whole process people's democracy work in China we traveled from remote villages to Baseline cities to

find the dancer [Music] well I mean this is wishing you a Grassroots Cadre of ho Chun Village in East China's jejung Province the village with about 1500 residents is undergoing a renewal project to reallocate and redesign its housing land to upgrade the villagers

living conditions and ramp up the growth of the rural economy in China the land use right in rural areas is free and can be passed on to descendants or heirs making the housing Land one of the most basic and important resources for

Chinese Farmers villagers pay a lot of attention to its progress they are watching closely to see if the village leaders do this in a just manner so for this kind of big issue we used to organize Democratic consultation meetings to collect

everyone's views and bring them to the Village meetings to make decisions those who had sold their land use rights shouldn't be qualified again for future distribution of the housing land the only way is to let them make economic

compensation for the village and the consultation meeting is convened every month to better tackle Village Affairs by inviting more to join in at the early stage the meeting participants are selected according to the OnePlus 8 plus X system

one and eight are fixed people while X varies according to the issues discussed so one stands for the party Branch Secretary it includes all the different groups of people in the Village Views are heard and discussed and then

reflected in a draft decision that will be passed on to the Village Representatives meeting the highest level consultation meeting in a village for further discussion and voting deep in the night the revised compensation scheme for the renewal project gets

passed with more than half the village Representatives voting yes what we've seen in the village of ho Chen is actually a very important part of Chinese democratic system that is the consultative Democracy at the gracious level China has explored the different forms

of democratic consultations based on different levels of decision-making process the Chinese people's political consultative conference or cppcc China's highest level advisory body plays a vital role in China's consultative democracy it encourages active participation in the deliberation and administration of state affairs

promoting the Democratic and scientific decision-making process of the party and the state [Music] the cppcc has more than 3 200 organizations at four administrative levels National provincial city and county with more than six hundred thousand cppcc members from 34 areas

including eight other political parties and representatives from Science and Technology literature and art economics Sports religion and other areas few people in Western countries want to acknowledge that the Communist Party of China is not the only political party in

China at all in addition to the CPC there are eight other Democratic parties actually belong to one of them and I'm very proud of my party affiliation further there is a very large Chamber of Commerce which caters to business owners

private business owners Etc and then further there is a larger group of people called people without political affiliations I think any political matter which eventually is put into execution as a policy for example they need to be vetted and eventually

verified and endorsed and supported not only by the CPC members but all the other eight Democratic parties as well as the Chamber of Commerce and the group which we call the people without party affiliations and the Democratic participation by the people of all walks

of life in this exercise of political rights actually covers all aspects of decision making as well as implementation supervision and eventually verification you name it and this is the only way why China has achieved such explosive productivity efficiency and economic and political

transformation over a short period of only about 43 years going to build an entire National Exchange Center but how to achieve that then the patient municipal government really comes to uh cppcc members to to form the concrete recommendations based

on our half year of analysis uh research uh consultations site visit you know all those things and then we put up the proposal to the municipal government and I remember in the 2021 uh Beijing international service Expo aging Bureau

of Commerce Chief actually come to announce that you're going to add a new number of John Venture hospital going to open more international schools there's a lot of you know measures taken uh uh you know so you can see how cppcc can

play actual role there thank you in China public views matter and not only in policy making but also in legislation this is Township in Chao young District this is our legislation liaison station usually all deputies at the municipal

district and Township level will have training and exchanges at this liaison station foreign there are 43 Community level legislation liaison stations like this one in the Chao Yong District the largest and the most populous urban area in Beijing in

China when a draft law is released it is subject to public review I keep a close eye on revised law and protection of Rights and interest of women the liaison station issued questionnaires for us to select residence feedback

online questionnaires were released to community residents to solicit their feedback and reflect legislation demands at the Grassroots level offline we visited households to collect relevant suggestions altogether there were 26 separate submissions to reflect the wider society's will in law making

people can participate in the drafting research revision evaluation and post-assessment of draft laws legislative information offices are set to directly connect the Grassroots interests of the public with the top legislative organ by listening to the Public Public views are heard and valued

in China's law making process on October 30th 2020 to the newly revised law on the protection of Rights and interests of women was deliberated and adopted over seven hundred thousand comments were received making laws is the difficult and the time consuming process

for example creating the e-commerce law took a total of five years to make during which there were three rounds of a soliciting public opinion and four deliberations the final Provisions placed more emphasis on consumer rights and increased the responsibilities and

obligations of the e-commerce operators the number of legislative information offices has also increased from only four in 2015 to 32 by January this year covering all of the country more than fifteen thousand suggestions have been made on 152 legislative drafts

and plans through these offices your ordinary people to make a comments to make suggestions and in the end these suggestions will be incorporate into the legislation I'll give you an example very interesting when the law on Family Violence or against Family

Violence was adopted that would have was sent to the Outreach office in Shanghai and many people raised different views and one view is this draft has only uh what type of Provisions concerning uh husband against wives but not the young against the

elderly against their parents or grandparents that was also cases of this nature so in the end when the law was adopted finally this particular part was revised so you evolve people into the process of making legislation the legislative

information offices not only promote China's rule of law but also practice whole process people's democracy by listening to the public and Gathering wisdom of the people for efficient and high quality National legislation the small Grassroots legislative information office has become a significant

Democratic platform [Music] foreign [Music] in November 1931 before the People's Republic of China was established the first national people's Congress of the Soviet Republic of China was held in Regine of zhangshi province in caves along the northern shanxi

Plateau they used soybeans to cast their votes to elect the cadres [Music] [Applause] in September 1954 the first session of the first national people's Congress was held Mark in the official establishment of the people's Congress system as the fundamental

political system in China after Decades of practice and exploration China has been continually improving the people's Congress system people accessing their voting rights is an important manifestation of people being the masters of the country which is the essence of democracy

among the nearly 3 000 deputies to the 14th NPC 16.69 percent are workers and Farmers besides the Communist party there are eight other political parties which all have representation in the NPC there is also a sizable proportion of delegates

without any stated political affiliation the 55 ethnic minorities hold 14.85 percent of NPC seats NPC is really as more jurisdiction is uh is elected by people in a different District different township and Society uh and and all the government has to be

assigned to a certain District to get elected and then they are actually uh uh also have a standing committee uh for the NPC and and then there's every Europe they're going to pass uh dozens of laws and regulations even the

ministry or a member of certain groups wants to passing a law they have the proposed to NPC and there's a debate among the Spanish company members and uh and then the you know there's hundreds of them and then

they have to uh you know put it for for discussion consultation with different groups they also conduct hearings and doing all those exercises and finally they pass in the law for many westerners democracy means one thing and one thing

only the right for each person to vote directly for their leaders this explains why most westerners naturally reject the idea that China has democracy but what they don't understand is that Chinese people are deeply involved in the elections of leaders of various levels

millions of urban and rural citizens do in fact directly vote for the representatives who govern their daily lives who then make decisions that accurately reflect the needs and desires of the people from the most fundamental level it's normal for more than 90

percent of Chinese voters to turn out in village and Community elections all across China which is much higher than in most western democracies there are now over 2.7 million deputies in people's congresses across the country more than one billion registered

voters have participated in county and Township level elections the ultimate goal of Elections is to choose The Virtuous and the capable who can solve today's most urgent problems and lead the country towards development China is a political system guarantees

the rights of its people to elect their representatives but more importantly it guarantees that those Representatives will be held accountable to the people [Music] the CPC leadership regards Democratic supervision by the people as one of the highest priorities article 3 of The

Constitution of the People's Republic of China States all administrative judicial and procuratorial organs of the state are created by the people's congresses to which they are responsible and under whose supervision they operate Democratic supervision refers to consultative supervision carried out by

means of opinions suggestions and criticism China has implemented several channels of democratic supervision supervision provided two channels for people to you know to check to check their accountability or check the behavior of the official first let the media you know supervision by the media

you know make the political Affair or the political let's say Activity more transparent to normal people so the normal people started to know that okay well this kind of official is now doing this kind of job they are holding this

conference and they are holding that event Okay so during this kind of transparency they could get to know they could get the detail of the political Affair and and this kind of transparency also can be translated into a pressure a

popular a popular pressure or pressure from the people so the officials would not dare to do some kind of bad things so that is the one kind of channel the second channel is that the supervision uh by you know the political parties and

the members of the conservative conferences they can also provide some kind of the professional suggestion of professional advices let's again cite ho Chun Village in jejung Province as an example in 2004 The Villages there elected China's first Village Affairs

supervision committee after doing his own field research on Democratic Supervision in Wu Yi in 2005 Xi Jinping who was at the time the secretary of the jejung provincial Committee of the CPC confirmed that the new system based on the separation of

supervision from Administration conforms to the development orientation of Grassroots democracy in China today such committees cover over 500 000 administrative Villages across China villagers can learn about Village Affairs without even leaving their homes ho Chun Village retains their

traditional bulletin board where villagers can learn about the latest Village Affairs but villagers can also make use of an app on their phones to keep track of what's going on in the village in addition to the Village Affairs

public column more people can participate in the supervision discussion and negotiation of Village Affairs it can also get involved through TV programs a mobile app and a WeChat mini program today Democratic supervision is part of everyone's daily life people can monitor

and supervise how authorities excise power at any place and any time through many kinds of democratic channels and platforms [Music] this is one two three four five Beijing citizens hotline service center it's been going on for more than 30 years

since it was launched in 1987. when you call one two three four five to file a complaint an operator will put you through to the right Department to talk to in 2019 the hotline was upgraded with time-sensitive feedback services in 2021

the mechanism was further improved and upgraded in 2021 we implemented a working mechanism to solve one major issue per month we selected the most common issues that people called about that were hard to solve we dedicated special task

forces to focus on these issues in China about 350 cities have one two three four five hotlines these hotlines provide first-hand information about public opinions and concerns that City officials could hardly get in other ways since the founding of New China people

have been expressing their opinions on state affairs both large and small and a party leadership has been relentlessly exploring appropriate convenient and diversified forms of supervision by the people anywhere in China can walk up to a cppcc member and say yes

gentlemen or yes Madam I want to ask you to reflect my concerns on particular issues I want to raise my concern about corruption in certain quarters in China I want to make sure that this particular policy can be revised or amended for

better benefits so the cppcc members are not only working in their own personal capacities they can be a funnel of information and feedback from all walks of life in China to the highest level of decision makers and the government and

party officials when asked how to escape the cycle of rising and falling Mao Zedong responded we have found a new path that is democracy he said that the only way for the government to not slack off is for

the people to oversee the government to satisfy the public need for information and the need to speak out is no easy task for a country of 1.4 billion people undeterred by this daunting task the country's leadership has emphasized Democratic supervision

throughout the whole process of Performing duties [Music] thank you the only litmus test of democracy is whether it can generate real benefits making the country a better place to live and make the lives of its people better democracy has always been

cherished by China and its people and will continue to evolve here with its own Chinese characteristics in 2022 the collective income of Fortune The Village we visited was more than 90 times higher than 18 years ago we sell gift books and special cases for

commemorative coins our online store is earning hundreds of thousands of Yuan per year the cafeteria for seniors is very good more than 130 people eat here every day we have a wonderful life the village is in good shape and we are all very happy

potent Village is a macrocosm of rural China showing all different types of people where the elderly have lived four generations the middle aged have settled into Village Affairs where young entrepreneurs have returned home to startup businesses and the newcomers who

have decided to make the village their home economic progress Rises with cultural and Community progress which is at the center of China's development over the past 10 years from 2012 to 2022 China's economy has doubled in size China has completely eliminated absolute

poverty by lifting nearly 99 million people out of poverty China has also created the largest number of internet and smartphone users in the world it has built the world's largest social security system and Health Care System covering more than 1.3 billion people

more than 10 million new jobs have been created each year for 15 consecutive years a number equivalent to the population of a mid-sized country more than 150 million people in China travel throughout the world every year all people men and women young and old

any ethnicity occupation or social level all participate in the whole process of Tana's democracy this underpins the miraculous development that China has been witnessing and reflect the guiding philosophy that the people are the masters of the country in China it is

the people who hold the future of the country in their hands foreign