China Briefing: Democracy and China

It is an opportune moment to reflect on democracy. In the United States, Donald Trump was elected president, and in Europe, the United Kingdom decided to leave the European Union (Brexit). South Korea is also marking the 30th anniversary of its democratization with its first-ever presidential impeachment.

Although the specific manifestations vary globally, the crisis facing democracy can be summarized in two dimensions. One is the 'input crisis.' Democracy was originally designed to represent more of the populace than previous political systems. However, contemporary democracies are not very representative in their 'inputs.' Voter turnout is quite low in many countries, and it is on a downward trend. It is not uncommon for elected candidates to win with far less than a majority of the votes. The pool of candidates running for office is also narrow. The criticism that democracy has degenerated into a plutocracy, where a wealthy few acquire political power (or even political power itself), is now trite. Adding to this the inter-generational injustice summarized by the over-representation of the elderly and the under-representation of the youth, and the global inequality arising from the over-representation of powerful nations and the under-representation of weaker ones, the challenges facing democracy are by no means insignificant.

The crisis of democracy is also, in part, an 'output crisis.' Citizens feel that the laws, policies, and other 'outputs' generated by elected officials are ineffective in improving the quality of their lives and solving the problems confronting their political communities. Many democratic countries are experiencing significant deficiencies and shortcomings in the leadership and decisiveness of national leaders, the integrity and expertise of bureaucrats, the negotiation skills and policy knowledge of politicians, coordination and collaboration among government ministries, and the maturity of other institutional environments, all of which are essential for resolving various public issues. As a result, many important policy issues are drifting without proper resolution or are being 'resolved' incorrectly.

However, what poses the greatest challenge to democracy is neither the input-level crisis nor the output-level crisis. It is the existence of a 'viable alternative,' namely the 'China model.' No matter how many flaws exist in current representative democracy and how numerous the criticisms leveled against it, it would not face a significant crisis if there were no realistic alternatives. The 'China model' poses a formidable challenge by exploiting the vulnerabilities of democratic political systems, particularly the problem of insufficient policy performance.

The challenge posed by China to democracy can be broadly summarized in four points. First, it argues that for political systems, output is more important than input. That is, how effectively the policies produced by the government resolve practical issues of people's livelihoods and achieve the state's fundamental objectives such as national security, economic growth, and political development is more important than ensuring appropriate and equitable participation of the populace in the input process. Second, the criterion for evaluating the quality of 'input' is not representativeness, which is emphasized in Western representative democracy—that is, 'how appropriately and sufficiently each segment of the population is represented'—but rather 'how many competent and outstanding individuals are discovered and trained through competition or other methods to rise to the position of high-level policymakers.' Third, in terms of discovering competent and outstanding individuals, 'voting,' which most democracies emphasize as an infallible method, is not very appropriate. Rather, the argument is that intra-party competition outcomes and experience serving in local government, as in China, are more effective indicators. Fourth, it is argued that entrusting administration and policy to such competent and outstanding individuals leads to high-quality policy outputs that the populace desires.

According to Wang Shaoguang's (2010) critique of representative systems, current Western democracies are merely 'choosers of the ruler' (選主), where citizens merely participate in voting without becoming true masters. This is because Western democracies have erred by excessively focusing on the methods and procedures of 'democracy' rather than its essential meaning. True 'democracy' is not about 'representatives' (代議) being chosen through mere voting by 'rulers'; rather, it is a system where policies desired by the populace, the true masters of state affairs, are effectively implemented by competent state managers, thereby widely benefiting the populace. Based on these arguments, the Chinese 'meritocracy' or 'meritocratic democracy' has gained prominence over existing Western-style representative democracy (Bell 2015; Bell and Li 2012; Li 2012; Li 2013).

For China's 'meritocratic democracy' to continuously and stably produce excellent policy outcomes, it is crucial for state managers to secure relative autonomy or insulation from the direct influence of the populace, i.e., social pressure. To this end, appropriate control and effective management of the internet are key to preventing the emergence and spread of subversive public opinion. The Chinese government is effectively preventing the destabilizing factors brought about by the information and communication technology revolution through 'smart' censorship and the construction and development of ChinaNet (European Council on Foreign Relations 2013: 150-157).

However, no matter how smart the censorship and control, it is difficult to completely block or prevent the overall impact of information and communication technology on citizens and politics. It is impossible to completely prevent 300 million Chinese bloggers from debating specific issues on ChinaNet or to prevent the exposure of official corruption in unpredictable ways. The internet and online spaces are explosively growing in China, and information exchange and communication are becoming more active with the emergence of various platforms and changes in existing media. The main actors of online public opinion are the younger generation, and their content primarily consists of exposing social problems. The overwhelming majority of SNS users are urban residents, who have developed individual self-awareness, are accustomed to more liberal expression (Hu Yong 2006), and possess a critical awareness of injustice and a desire for democratic participation (Zhang Xijin 2011). Online public opinion even tends to connect with offline collective protests.

Collective protests in China were recorded at 10,000 cases in 1993 and over 74,000 cases in 2004. In 2010, there were approximately 180,000 collective protests nationwide, a twofold increase compared to 2006 (New York Times, August 16, 2011). Most protests are related to unauthorized or unfair land appropriation by the government or developers, abuse of power by local officials, or wage arrears by companies, and they tend to be movements for people's livelihood and rights protection rather than political movements. Recently, protests have not only become more frequent but also show signs of organization (Lee Dong-ryul and Seo Bong-kyo, 2012).

Under China's meritocratic democracy, a lack of representativeness in terms of input seems unlikely to emerge as a serious problem. This is because the concept has been inverted: 'democracy' is not about electing national policymakers by the people and enhancing the representativeness of the political system, but rather 'serving the people' (爲民) through government's competent design and implementation of policies on behalf of the populace is true 'democracy.' The perception that delegative democracy is superior to representative democracy has long been firmly established.

The foundation supporting the equation 'serving the people = democracy' is the continuous output of excellent policies that satisfy the majority of the populace. However, no government in history has ever continuously produced only successful policies. Whether large or small, in the near future or distant future, policy failures will occur. Perhaps China's alternative democracy may be able to conceal the negative repercussions of such events through 'smart' public opinion control, effectively manage them, or at least carefully manage them to prevent online public opinion from escalating into offline collective protests. Additionally, continuous anti-corruption campaigns will be necessary to demonstrate the fairness and impartiality of administration, policy processes, and law enforcement.

However, ensuring the continuous success of policies is not easy. This is because 'good policies' that can effectively cope with the constantly changing policy environment are unlikely to emerge without creativity (創新), a concept that the Chinese government has only recently begun to focus on. For the continuous output of high-quality policies, state managers must be unimaginably creative, or they must be able to borrow the creativity they lack from the private sector, such as the market or civil society.

This is precisely where the challenge to Chinese democracy lies. Chinese democracy has emerged as an attractive alternative to Western-style representative democracy through a redefinition of 'democracy.' It claims to better realize 'democracy' even without Western representation. However, if China desires a creative society that provides the foundation for continuous policy success (and also enables economic development), it must also redefine 'freedom' in Chinese terms. In other words, if it can generate 'creativity' without Western freedom, Chinese democracy could become a formidable alternative to Western representative democracy facing a crisis. Ultimately, the main battleground for the success of China's 'democracy' experiment is not 'democracy' itself, but 'freedom.' ■

Author

Kim Sun-hyukProfessor of Public Administration at Korea University. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University. His main research areas include Korean politics, comparative politics, and government reform. His recent works include "The Changing Modes of Administrative Reform in South Korea" (2017, co-authored), "The Information and Communication Technology Revolution and the Future of Democracy" (2016), and "NGOs and Social Protection in East Asia: Korea, Thailand and Indonesia" (2015).

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