By Qin Xiaoying
During his visit to the United States in April, President Hu Jintao said there could be no modernization
without democracy. People have noted that Chinese leaders, at each
crucial stage of the country's development, show great concern with
the progress of China's democratization.
In fact, "democracy" is both an old and a new topic in this
country. Today, the Chinese, who are engaged in a modernization
drive, know very well that while democracy is not the key factor
determining China's progress, it is absolutely indispensable to
China's grand undertakings.
Why is democracy not omnipotent?
Democracy is a system as well as a concept. It can be said that
ideas tinged with democracy or appeals for equality had long
existed in ancient China. As a matter of fact, "people first" ideas
and those giving priority to people's well-being are found in the
historical records of many countries where ancient civilizations
originated.
Democracy as a system appeared twice in Western nations, first
during the ancient Greek and Roman periods, and then in the modern
capitalist period starting from the English Revolution of the
1640s.
"Democracy" today refers to the latter. Two peak periods mark
modern bourgeois democracy.
The first peak came with the primitive accumulation of capital
and the Industrial Revolution.
Its progressive nature is reflected in the fact that the
medieval system of personal dependency was scrapped, and the
extra-economic exploitation associated with it came to an end. This
largely promoted productivity, ended fragmented feudalist rule,
cleared away barriers for the advance of the market economy and,
therefore, greatly boosted the process of industrialization in the
West.
Does this type of democracy have a hypocritical side? Yes,
indeed. It was manifested by colonial wars bent on expansion and
plunder.
The second peak period came after World War II. The death of
millions of people in the war, crimes committed by Fascism and
Nazism, the impoverishment of people in western Europe, the rise of
the socialist countries and the anti-colonial tide sweeping Asia
and Africa combined to pose a serious challenge to the modern
capitalist system. This helped bring about wide-ranging
transformations.
Having survived disasters and misfortunes, the West managed to
enter a new phase of social democratization marked by high welfare,
high wages, high taxes and a high employment rate.
Viewing these two peak periods of Western democracy against
China's history, especially that in the 19th and 20th centuries, we
can see that Western democracy attracted the attention of the
Chinese in different ways in different periods. We can also
understand why China's democracy must take its own road while
absorbing useful elements from Western democracy.
Reform-minded Chinese, including Kang Youwei, who masterminded
the 1898 Reform, and Dr Sun Yat-sen, whose 1911 Revolution
overthrew the Qing monarchy, championed industrialization and
learning from the West. But this road led nowhere. The "teachers,"
or Western powers, kept bullying the "student," or the Chinese.
Hence, the Chinese made the historical choice revolution led by the
Chinese communists. The root cause of all this is: China and the
West were in different conditions. While China just started to
break ground for industrialization, the West had already entered
the phase of capital's global expansion.
Today, things seem to be repeating themselves. Many things
Western are attracting the Chinese. But learning does not
necessarily mean indiscriminate copying or cloning. The reason is
the same. China and the West are at different stages of
development. While the West is already in the post-industrial era,
industrialization and the universal application of information
technology has yet to be completed in China.
This shows that China simply cannot resolve all its problems
using the same methods as the West. China needs to catch up,
mobilizing all its financial and human resources to do big things
with great efficiency. The traditionally strong social
responsibility of the Chinese and the advantage the country enjoys
to concentrate resources on the most urgent things lay the
foundations for the country's modernization.
But the foundation alone is far from enough. Democracy is
absolutely indispensable to the country's modernization drive.
China's modernization will remain a dream without democracy with
Chinese characteristics and learning from the world's modern
democratic systems.
One of democracy's important institutional attributes is the
public's supervision of the implementation of power. One of its
most salient spiritual features is helping bring people's
initiative into full play.
Without democracy, there would be no institutionalized and
efficient public supervision. In this case, "mobilizing all
possible resources for major undertakings" could degenerate into
abuses of power. Cracking down on corruption, restraining monopoly
interest groups and punishing "oligarchies" which harm the nation
and people could never be done in this context.
Without democracy, there would be no respect for people. Wisdom
and creativity are at the core of human dignity. In the absence of
care for and encouragement of people's creativity and wisdom,
creating a new type of country would remain a dream.
Without democracy, an effective personnel system is hard to be
introduced and the posts at various levels would be occupied by
incompetent bureaucrats. Under such circumstances, effective
management departments filled with competent people would be hard
to come by. China, in turn, would never transform from a country
with a huge population to a country with a huge contingent of
first-rate professionals.
In the absence of democracy, it would be hard to prevent ideas
for development from becoming fossilized. Even the right ideas
would be succumbed to the fate that "the ideas die once the man
conceiving them leaves the post."
In the final analysis, democracy embodies the modernization of
man and is the crystallization of political and spiritual
civilizations. The Chinese nation is a creative nation. We are
bound to come up with a modern democratic system that possesses
unique Chinese characteristics.
The author is a researcher with the China Foundation for
International and Strategic Studies.
(China Daily July 3, 2006)
