What's new

China: Vote as I say

Roybot

BANNED
Joined
Dec 14, 2010
Messages
20,064
Reaction score
-2
Country
India
Location
Australia
Independent candidates for elections appear to be a spontaneous step too far for the Communist Party

Jun 16th 2011 | BEIJING | from the print edition

20110618_asp004.jpg


“A LIVE-FIRE exercise in democracy” is how one of China’s sparkier newspapers hailed a recent move by dozens of citizens to promote themselves online as independent candidates in forthcoming local elections. Communist Party officials, unnerved by Arab revolutions and sporadic unrest in the provinces, are far less jubilant. Voting rituals long choreographed by the party suddenly face a new challenge from the internet.

Elections at the lowest tier of China’s multi-layered parliamentary structure are the only ones in which citizens can directly vote for their legislators. But the party likes to leave nothing to chance. Citizens can, in theory, stand for election with support from ten fellow constituents. In practice, the party usually ensures that only its endorsed candidates make it to the shortlist. Ordinary Chinese often refer to the “people’s congresses”, as the legislatures are called, as mere ornamental “flower vases”.

So a flurry of internet-fuelled enthusiasm for such polls has attracted considerable attention, including in some state-owned media (to the disquiet of propaganda officials, say Chinese journalists). Li Fan of the World and China Institute in Beijing, thinks that more than 100 people have declared themselves as candidates in recent weeks for elections for people’s congresses that are due to be held around the country in the coming months. They have mustered support using microblogging tools such as Sina Weibo, a hugely popular Twitter-like service.

Even a hint of spontaneity in legislative elections can make the party squirm. In 1980 the first experiment with such polls led to heated campaigns on campuses. Officials intervened to block outspoken candidates from winning seats. Six years later, attempts to exclude independent candidates from local elections prompted student protests. The crackdown on the Tiananmen Square unrest in 1989 all but ended activists’ efforts at the ballots until 2003, when a slightly more liberal atmosphere encouraged dozens from the newly emerging middle classes to run. But when elections were held three years later, the party stifled media coverage.

Now, despite a sweeping crackdown on dissent this year involving the arrest of dozens of activists, the party is finding it harder to impose silence. A surge in online social networking has enabled citizens to connect instantly with vast numbers of like-minded people. Intellectuals and journalists with high profiles online are among those who have declared their candidacies. Li Chengpeng, an author and social critic in Sichuan province, has more than 3m followers of his Sina Weibo account. In a message posted on June 15th Mr Li wrote that a policeman had said he would vote for him, with many fellow officers wanting to follow suit.

The emergence of these candidates has coincided with a spate of local disturbances in different parts of the country. They make the party, which is preparing to celebrate its 90th birthday on July 1st, all the more anxious. In Zengcheng, a town in Guangdong province that manufactures jeans, thousands of police appear to have quelled days of rioting which broke out on June 10th after an altercation between security guards and a migrant street vendor. This came after rioting in Lichuan in Hubei province over the death in police custody of a local legislator and anti-corruption campaigner. In late May a man with grievances against the government in Fuzhou, Jiangxi province, blew up himself and two others, prompting an outpouring of sympathy on the internet. Xu Chunliu, a self-proclaimed candidate in Beijing, who has 12,000-plus Sina Weibo followers, says such incidents have encouraged some to venture into politics. Better, he says, to battle it out in parliament than on the streets.

On June 8th the government revealed its jitteriness about elections in an interview by the state-run news agency, Xinhua, with an unnamed official of the National People’s Congress, the apex of the legislative hierarchy. The official said independent candidates had “no legal basis” and hinted that campaigning in non-approved settings would not be tolerated. But the official did not rule out the possibility that independents could run. A harder-hitting commentary appeared in Global Times, a Beijing newspaper. By soliciting votes through the internet, it said, independent candidates “could destroy the operating rules of Chinese society”. It urged them to “return from microblogging to reality”.

Mid-May elections for the people’s congress in Xinyu, a city in Jiangxi province, underlined the difficulties independents can face. Liu Ping (pictured above), a retired worker with more than 31,000 online followers, tried to run but was disqualified, apparently because of her labour activism. Her home was later raided by police, who detained her for several days. Ms Liu’s microblog postings about her experiences aroused sympathy among internet users and helped launch the recent wave of independent candidacies.

The party is not united, though. On June 13th Study Times, a newspaper published by the Communist Party’s top academy for party officials, argued in defence of independent candidates. China, it said, had failed sufficiently to emphasise the right to get elected. The newspaper said the idea that “you can only be a representative if we let you be a representative” was a “serious violation of socialist democratic principles”. The party, it appears, has some internal differences of its own to resolve.

China: Vote as I say | The Economist

Is PRC really experimenting in democracy, or this is just a facade?
 
Is PRC really experimenting in democracy, or this is just a facade?

You can learn from anything. Even IF it is a facade as you say, why does that stop it from being a worthwhile experiment?

Anyway, they already have Hong Kong to test multi-party elections.
 
You can learn from anything. Even "IF" it is a facade as you say, why does that stop it from being a worthwhile experiment?

True, but in order to learn something from an experiment you need to do the experiment as per the guidelines.

Its like I want to learn about nuclear bomb, but since am not confident how safe it will be, I will test it in a controlled environment. But for that to happen I ll have to put in the right ingredients in order to see how things work. I can't just skip the major ingredients and just pretend that am testing a nuclear bomb. Hope am making sense?
 
I think the CPC should take things very slowly. Waiting 20+ years for any major political reform, is not a problem at all, if it can prevent needless bloodshed and instability.

Economy first. Politics later.

True, but in order to learn something from an experiment you need to do the experiment as per the guidelines.

Its like I want to learn about nuclear bomb, but since am not confident how safe it will be, I will test it in a controlled environment. But for that to happen I ll have to put in the right ingredients in order to see how things work. I can't just skip the major ingredients and just pretend that am testing a nuclear bomb. Hope am making sense?

Fair point, but also bear in mind the risks. Instability will hurt our economy.
 
I think the CPC should take things very slowly. Waiting 20+ years for any major political reform, is not a problem at all, if it can prevent needless bloodshed and instability.

Economy first. Politics later.



Fair point, but also bear in mind the risks. Instability will hurt our economy.
You are talking as if multi-party politic countries do not know how to grow and manage an economy...:rolleyes:

Babies like to put things into their mouths. Putting a communist in charge of the economy is like giving a baby a six-shooter with five rounds in the cylinder.
 
You are talking as if multi-party politic countries do not know how to grow and manage an economy...:rolleyes:

Well then, tell me which major developing country has an economy that performs better than China's one?

Nigeria, South Africa, etc? They are all democracies.

Democracies are great for "developed" countries, but they don't fare so well in "developing" countries.
 
Well then, tell me which major developing country has an economy that performs better than China's one?

Nigeria, South Africa, etc? They are all democracies.

Democracies are great for "developed" countries, but they don't fare so well in "developing" countries.
Having a democratic society does not guarantee responsible citizenship. Your argument is a fallacy. The better question is which communist country in history have consistently performed at least as well economically as democratic/capitalist ones?

I guess that explains why our economy is doing so well. :azn:
China's economic success has nothing to do with communist economic principles. We may call China a 'communist' country, but that is only a label of convenience because that is what the Chinese Communist Party call itself. In reality, they are all frauds, they are Communists In Name Only (CINO).
 
China's economic success has nothing to do with communist economic principles. We may call China a 'communist' country, but that is only a label of convenience because that is what the Chinese Communist Party call itself. In reality, they are all frauds, they are Communists In Name Only (CINO).

You're right, and we've had this discussion before.

China's system is called Socialism with Chinese characteristics, and is often referred to as "state capitalism" in the West.

I guess you would be upset, to see the fastest growing major economy in the world, as a Communist country. Luckily for you, we're not one. :azn:
 
You're right, and we've had this discussion before.

China's system is called Socialism with Chinese characteristics, and is often referred to as "state capitalism" in the West.

I guess you would be upset, to see the fastest growing major economy in the world, as a Communist country. Luckily for you, we're not one. :azn:
What is there to be 'upset' about? With a capitalist economy, there will be the inevitable rise and fall and no matter how much state control there might be in China, there will be those rise and fall cycles. You really believe that no governments have EVER attempted to control these economic cycles before? :lol:
 
It is unfortunate that nice looking lady in that picture is part of the group of dissenters. T_T
 
China: Vote as I say | The Economist

Is PRC really experimenting in democracy, or this is just a facade?

If democracy is about chances for political participation, then even in a one-party system you can have open and good democracy.

I think that in a multi-party system you'll have more guarantees for good government, but I invite the Chinese govt. to prove the world otherwise.

Corruption and elitism is the real problem in governments, and multi-party governments (including my own with _many_ parties, large and small) are not immune to it.
 
Well then, tell me which major developing country has an economy that performs better than China's one?

Nigeria, South Africa, etc? They are all democracies.

Democracies are great for "developed" countries, but they don't fare so well in "developing" countries.


china is fastest developing country so none can beat her in that aspect but u forget second fastest growing country (hint world's biggest democracy)
i agree in democracy changes are very slow but we are seeing lots of changes lately, as the democracy is maturing and it will be of great help in future.we will grow more and more no one can stop us.
 

Pakistan Affairs Latest Posts

Back
Top Bottom