Homegrown And Innovative

Multiparty cooperation and political consultation promote the values of democracy in the new era By Li Fangfang

Among all the groups in which Wang Xinqiang participates on WeChat, a popular social networking smartphone app, three are used to collect public opinion and pool suggestions put forward by members of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang (RCCK), one of China’s eight noncommunist parties. Wang is chairman of the RCCK Chongqing Municipal Committee.

A former vice dean of the College of Physics at Chongqing University, Wang is also a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China’s top political advisory body that serves as an important institution of multiparty cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

The CPPCC consists of representatives of the CPC and non-communist parties, individuals without party affiliation, and representatives of people’s organizations, all ethnic groups and various strata of society. It also represents compatriots in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Macao Special Administrative Region and Taiwan, as well as returned overseas Chinese and people by special invitation.

The main functions of the CPPCC are to conduct political consultation, exercise democratic supervision and participate in the deliberation and administration of state affairs. This political consultation covers major principles and policies proposed by central and local governments as well as matters of importance concerning political, economic, cultural and social affairs.

“In this Internet era, it’s common to see people connect to the Internet via smartphones. It is so widely used that it has become our best method of collecting public opinions,” said Wang.

Each member sends suggestions to a WeChat group chat and together they select an issue to be addressed which then gets researched and is reported to the RCCK Central Committee as a proposal to the CPPCC National Committee. This has become the routine process used by the RCCK Chongqing Municipal Committee to participate in political consultation.

Socialist democracy

“The CPC-led system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation stresses both the leadership of the CPC and socialist democracy which features political consultation, democratic supervision and participation in the deliberation and administration of state affairs,” Chinese President Xi Jinping, also General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, said when attending a joint panel discussion on March 4 with political advisors from the China Democratic League, the China Zhi Gong Party, those without party affiliation and returned over-