Deputies to the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC) walk out of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing after the end of the second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th NPC, March 8, 2021. (Photo by Zhang Wujun/People’s Daily)
Data unveiled during China’s recently-concluded “two sessions”, the annual sessions of China’s national legislature and top political advisory body, have further shown the world the vigorous vitality and high efficiency of the country’s socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics.
Statistics show that all 9,180 suggestions submitted by lawmakers to last year’s annual session of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, had been handled by late January, with feedback given to relevant NPC deputies.
About 71.28 percent of the problems raised by NPC deputies in their suggestions have been resolved or given a schedule for solution.
The National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China’s top political advisory body, has received a total of 5,974 proposals since its third annual session held last year, and 5,044 of them were placed on file. Of the 5,044 proposals filed, 99.64 percent have been handled.
No two political systems are entirely the same. A country must follow a political system and a development path that best suit its national realities and nature.
The path of socialist political advancement with Chinese characteristics is the logical outcome of the evolution of history, theory, and practice as the Chinese people have long engaged in struggles since the advent of modern times. It is a requisite for maintaining the very nature of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and fulfilling its fundamental purpose.
Since the founding of the New China, especially since the reform and opening-up, the CPC has united with and led the Chinese people in making significant progress in developing socialist democracy, and opened up and kept to the path of socialist political advancement with Chinese characteristics, thus charting the correct course for achieving the most extensive possible people’s democracy in China.
Since China entered a new era of development, the path of socialist political advancement with Chinese characteristics has become wider, the system of institutions through which the people run the country has been further improved, and the country’s systems of socialist democracy have shown greater vitality.
Facts have proved that China has developed an institutional design that guarantees people’s political participation to the greatest extent.
China has upheld and steadily improved the system of people’s congresses, a political system fundamental to the Party’s leadership, the people’s position as masters of the country, and law-based governance.
The system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation led by the CPC, as a basic political system in China, is a great political innovation made by the CPC, the Chinese people, non-communist parties, personages without party affiliation, as well as a new type of party system growing from China’s soil.
Meanwhile, the country has made the system of regional ethnic autonomy and the system of community-level self-governance system its basic political systems.
International observers believe that the fact that the Chinese people hold high expectations of the annual “two sessions” has fully demonstrated that China’s institutional systems have been recognized by the people, and that China’s socialist democracy is the broadest, most genuine, and most effective democracy to safeguard the fundamental interests of the people.
Whether people enjoy democratic rights or not depends on whether they have the rights to vote, constantly participate in everyday political activities, and engage in democratic elections, democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic oversight.
Chinese socialist democracy takes two important forms, in one of which, the people exercise their right to vote in elections, and in the other, people from all sectors of society undertake extensive deliberations before major decisions are made.
These two forms complement each other and constitute institutional features and strengths of China’s socialist democracy, and serve as an important source of inspiration for other countries.
Many international observers pointed out that an important reason behind the success of China’s economic and social development is the success of Chinese democratic systems.
Whether economic and political behavior is democratic should be judged by whether it is beneficial to the well-being of the people, according to Michel Aglietta, founding father of the French regulation school, who considers China’s efforts to continuously promote the well-being of people as democracy.
It is agreed that China’s practice of democracy has increasingly brought into play the advantages and characteristics of its socialist democracy, broadened the road of mankind to the ideal of democracy, and made important contributions full of Chinese wisdom to the progress of mankind’s political civilization.
