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China Program Overview

What is the status of democracy in China?

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What is the status of democracy in China?

Political and social reforms have lagged behind economic reform in China. But while political reform is slow, during the past two decades there have been significant changes. The Chinese government began direct village elections in 1988 to help maintain social and political order in the context of rapid economic reforms. Today, village elections occur in about 600,000 villages across China, reaching 75 percent of the nation's 1.3 billion people. These elections are for representatives on village councils and members of the local People's Congresses. At levels above local villages, the political process is still determined by the Communist party.

There is massive participation in village elections, and their widespread popularity has led to revisions in Chinese law to include procedures that guarantee electoral openness, fairness, and competitiveness. The changes forbid local government officials from intervening in the nomination phase and encourage more elected village committee members to work together with village Party committees, whose leaders are elected only by Party members, and whose number is usually at 10 percent or lower of the village population.  In general, electoral practices have become more standardized and credible. The success of village elections prompted experiments of public election of township leaders — the next highest level of government — in a few provinces, with limited results.

The other two direct elections in China, the election of People's Congress deputies at the township and county levels respectively, are of dubious quality.  They are conducted every five years, but nomination procedures, campaigning, interaction between candidates and voters, and final voting are much less transparent.  These elections are usually not competitive, and elected deputies do not have time, pay, expertise, and means to represent their constituents.

Village elections have had an upward rippling effect on personnel selection.  Open nomination procedures are being partially applied to the selection of candidates for offices at various levels of the Chinese government.  The same measures are also sometimes used when selecting Party chiefs for county level governments in recent years.  But, in the foreseeable future, direct elections will not be used nationwide to elect local government officials.

However, direct democracy at the village level is impacting China's urban centers, encouraging urban residents to demand accountability, and some even came out to run for local People's Congress deputies in the past two cycles of elections. 

China is not a democracy, but forces in China are propelling popular demand for meaningful democracy to be introduced and applied.  The current economic slowdown also will create more momentum for this change to take place.

 

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