The Communist Party of China Central Committee and ‘Democracy in Crisis: Plights and Solutions’
In preparation for the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China, the ruling party and highest authority, the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee (CPCCC) invited to Beijing 15 people with various educational and professional background to constitute what it called a ‘Delegation of Think Tanks of Developing Countries’ to acquaint them with current development efforts in the country and to also exchange ideas on their challenges, and especially on how to deal with the question of ‘Democracy in Crisis: Plights and Solutions’. The CPCCC appointed Berhane Gebre-Christos, an Ethiopian and Special Envoy of the Prime Minister of Ethiopia with the Rank of a Minister, the Head of the Delegation. This appointment is quite interesting because the members of the delegation are not from the same countries. Mr. Augustin Hamad Ngom and Ms. Ndeye Ngom are nationals of Senegal. Stephen Plaatjie and Alex Mashilo were from South Africa. Bola A. Akinterinwa and Owei Lakemfa are Nigerians, etc. All these people were members of the delegation.
What makes the issue of appointment of a head of delegation important for everyone is that, in official protocol, when a head of delegation speaks on behalf of his or her delegation, no one can speak thereafter unless specifically required to do so. However, the appointed head of delegation, without any shadow of doubt, spoke in general terms to accommodate the viewpoints of other members. And to a great extent, it was okay.
The meeting of the think-tank began on Tuesday, 21st March and continues until Sunday, 2nd April, 2017. Visits to high-level officials and leading Chinese organisations, as well as discussions on several issues, were planned. They included party building and appointment system of the CPC, anti-corruption and the international cooperation of the CPC, communications with the Shandong Provincial Party School and the Shandong University, e-commerce and study activities of the Standing Committee of the Local Party Committee, and organised visits to the G20 Hangzhou Summit site, the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, China Road and Bridge Corporation, as well as the Hua Wei Corporation. But, of all the visits so far, the cases of the Hua Wei (meaning Chinese/China’s Achievement/future) and the China Road and Bridge Corporation were quite noteworthy, especially in terms of the high levels of their achievements.
On Last Friday, 24th March, the Wanshou Forum focused attention on the plights and possible solutions to the problems of democracy in crisis. Intrinsic in this topic are four analytical challenges: democratic system, democratic system in a crisis, the difficulties encountered during the crisis, and the possible outlets or ways out of the crisis. In other words, the challenge is not simply about addressing the issue of a democratic system. The democratic system in question has to be in a crisis and not necessarily in a conflict situation for it to qualify to be analysed.
In this regard, it is useful to also note that in polemology, a conflict is first preceded by a crisis during which all non-violent efforts, and particularly diplomatic negotiations, are undertaken. It is only when such efforts are not fruitful that there can be movement upward to the level of conflict in the continuum of violence. And when a democratic system is in crisis, several challenges cannot but be created and unavoidable because there is no system of government, be it democratic, autocratic, or otherwise, that is not ridden with conflict of interest. If we admit of this observation, does it then mean that there is no way out? If there is, what then is the possible outlet or solution?
Additionally, in an attempt to provide possible answers, it is equally relevant to ask the extent to which the possible outlets can exist outside of the global framework. For instance, Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell have noted that ‘China is now so deeply integrated into the world economy system that its internal and regional priorities have become part of a larger quest: to define a global role that serves Chinese interests but also wins acceptance from other powers.’
In the same vein, other scholars have said that, while ‘China’s relative power has grown significantly with its economic rise, its foreign policy remains defensive in nature: destabilising influences from abroad, avoiding territorial losses, and sustaining economic growth.’ Thus, there are strong linkages between the domestic and external aspects of the subject matter. How did the Washou Forum look at the issues of democracy and anti-corruption in China, especially from the perspective of psychology of human differences?
The Conflicting Perspectives
The Wansou Forum, a major feature of the two-week meeting, focused its main attention on ‘Democracy in Crisis: Plights and Solutions.’ The forum took the format of a symposium as virtually all the 15 speakers addressed the common theme but using different countries as case studies. Consequently, several and different issues were raised at the level of plight and challenges: it was argued that any type of democracy that cannot satisfy the needs of the people, particularly in terms of better living, is, at best, meaningless. Even though democracy was the main issue in the 20th century, global freedom is, however, believed to be on the decline as from 2015.
In France and Italy, it has been difficult to have a balanced budget since the past thirty years. Allocation of resources in Lebanon is largely impacted on by globalisation and technology. The year 2016 was seen as a watershed in the history of democracy, especially with Brexit in the United Kingdom and election of Mr. Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. Some participants argued that Brexit and Donald Trump’s election marked the end of liberal democracy and some others argued to the contrary. There was agreement, however, that illiberal democracy is now on the increase.
Professor Li Zhen, Director of Chinese Public Administration Society, explained that democracy is essentially about certainty and that the capitalist democracy has now become uncertain and unpredictable. Uncertainty exists at two levels: elite and the common people. At each level, there are also the leftist and the rightists. All of them are now in a combat with one another. China, he further argued, is the only country where democratic certainty can be said to exist simply because the Government maintains a balance between the elite and the people on the one hand, and between rural areas and urban cities, on the other.
More significantly, is it democracy or capitalism that is in crisis? Stephen Plaatjie from South Africa believed that it is capitalism and not democracy. He argued that democracy is even the main crisis itself. Bola A. Akinterinwa argued to the contrary: democracy is neither the crisis nor is capitalism in crisis. In his eyes, it is the mania of conducting and managing democracy, as well as capitalism, that has been the major issue and source of whatever crisis or crises that exist and that needed to be addressed.
For examples, he argued that it was not the majority that directly elected Donald Trump but the minority through the framework of the Electoral College in the US, in spite of the fact that Hilary Clinton who lost the election won the popular vote with over three million votes more than that of Donald Trump. In Burundi, he recalled that the democratic lull was prompted by a controversial interpretation of the new 2005 constitution of the country. In fact, the sit tight politics in many African countries (Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, etc) is not traceable to bad or good democracy but to the whims and caprices of the manipulators of democratic ethos.
Several suggestions were also made in terms of way out of the problems. They included the need for good, if not better, governance which should underscore the creation of new jobs, underscore greater investment on education and planning, and remove inequality in the society. In fact, it was suggested that it was not a democratic government that was needed but a good government. In general, the Director General of the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee expressed much happiness about the outcome of the paper presentations and general discussion. He underscored the aspects of in- depth analyses, divergent opinions on the theme, passion with which the issues were debated, and perhaps, most interestingly, and the general consensus reached: that democracy is a desideratum; no one size fits all; democracy cannot be used or reused by force. It must be allowed to evolve; democracy must not only be seen as a process or procedure, but also as a means and outcome.
One Truth about Democracy in China
Grosso modo, a democratic governance system is regarded as a global model, only if it is universally acceptable to a level where other nations will be confident enough to want to adopt it in their societies. But this is not the case with China. Chinese model of political governance is at variance with the widely acceptable and clearly conceptualized model of democracy in the west, thus making a globally acceptable conceptualization of the Chinese political system a major issue in global discourse.
Without iota of doubt, democracy in China is peculiar to China. The adoption of a peculiar democratic system is consistent with the national identity that the Government of China wants in order to maintain originality of purpose in any aspect of Chinese lifestyle. In fact, many observers hold the belief that the success and much progress made by China is largely traceable to its insistence on national identity. Owei Lakemfa, in a private discussion with me, has argued that Africa’s development setbacks are partly because of loss of identity. The colonialists wiped away whatever Africa stood for, and therefore, the people had to begin again with a new imposed lifestyle. Every powerful country or group of countries always wants to impose its culture on others, and often with a caveat that all those who accept are civilised while those refusing to accept it are considered uncivilised.
And true enough, China resisted any external imposition and has always adopted a Chinese mania in doing its own things. Consequently, in the eyes of the West, China’s democracy is not civilised in concept and design, and therefore unacceptable. But most unfortunately, all known political governance systems in the world currently experience diverse difficulties and crises that are peculiar to the values and traditions of such societies and the People’s Republic of China cannot be an exception. This necessarily raises questions on which democratic system is civilised, more civilised and which one is not.
It is only reasonable that the model of political system adopted by any state should be informed by the traditional and cultural heritages of the state, as well as be easy to operate in order to deliver on the shared aspirations of the generality of its citizens, even if it is different in character from what obtains elsewhere.
More important, the difficulties and outlets of any given democratic system in a crisis situation are largely a resultant from its immediate cultural background and environmental conditionings, and therefore, multidimensional in scope, complicated in implications and largely driven by factors of globalisation in the quest for an enduring solution. In this regard, for instance, it was thanks to the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy unrest, at the domestic level, and the politics of glasnost and perestroika in the former Soviet Union and which eventually led to its demise, that prompted the Communist Party of China to ‘undertake systematic assessments of the causes of regime collapse and institute intra-party reform in order to avoid a similar fate.’
The type of political system adopted by a State is not where the problem lies. It is in how the system is operated to deliver dividends of democracy. Put differently, how the attendant challenges of a particular governance model are managed to best harness its strength for the benefits of the people is what is of paramount importance. Consequently, if the Communist Party of China (CPC) is to sustain its governance brand and remain relevant in global politics, it must find a way to address the crisis of universal conceptualization and acceptability of its governance model.
(See concluding part on www.thisdaylive.com)
The type of political system adopted by a State is not where the problem lies. It is in how the system is operated to deliver dividends of democracy. Put differently, how the attendant challenges of a particular governance model are managed to best harness its strength for the benefits of the people is what is of paramount importance. Consequently, if the Communist Party of China (CPC) is to sustain its governance brand and remain relevant in global politics, it must find a way to address the crisis of universal conceptualization and acceptability of its governance model