By He Yin, People’s Daily
The annual “two sessions” of China’s national legislature and top political advisory body offer the world an important opportunity to gain a better understanding of the essence and practice of Chinese democracy.
During this year’s “two sessions”, namely the fifth session of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC) and the fifth session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), NPC deputies and CPPCC members actively performed their duties and turned people’s voices and ideas into general consensus on state governance.
The annual meetings have showed the international community how China’s democracy is an extensive and true democracy that works and China’s sound governance has strong democratic foundations.
Democracy starts with the full expression of the people’s wishes. The Chinese government has solicited public opinions and suggestions via multiple channels for drafting the 2022 Government Work Report, and received thousands of opinions and suggestions from all walks of life. More than 1,100 pieces of representative suggestions from netizens were selected, and some key advice has been taken by the report.
Chinese netizens actively participated in the suggestion solicitation campaign called “share your ideas at the ‘two Sessions’”, which enabled different kinds of suggestions from the people to be directly fed to NPC deputies and CPPCC members before and during this year’s “two sessions”.
Through the “two sessions”, the world sees clearly that the Chinese people are showing greater interest in democratic participation, which is expanding in scope and depth and diversifying its forms and channels.
Democracy can only be truly implemented through the fulfillment of the people’s wishes. Last year, offices and departments under the State Council handled 8,666 pieces of suggestions submitted by NPC deputies and 5,718 proposals submitted by CPPCC members during the 2021 “two sessions”, which accounted for 96.4 percent and 93.4 percent of the total numbers of motions and proposals, respectively, announced the State Council Information Office (SCIO) right before this year’s “two sessions”.
All the suggestions and proposals submitted by national lawmakers and political advisors during the “two sessions” last year have been handled on schedule, according to the SCIO.
After careful consideration of the suggestions from NPC deputies and CPPCC members, relevant departments adopted more than 4,300 pieces of advice and subsequently introduced over 1,600 policies and measures.
The detailed data has fully proven that China has ensured that its people have channels to express their aspirations, wishes and demands on issues ranging from important national strategies and policies to social governance and basic necessities of life, enabling their voices to be heard and their requests to be answered.
Discussions on the effectiveness of democracy have been mounting in the international community.
People are well aware that in some countries, practice of democracy has increasingly become empty promise—the people are only called upon to vote and then are forgotten once they have cast their votes; the people only hear high-sounding promises during an election campaign but have no say whatsoever afterwards; and they are wooed when their votes are wanted but are ignored once the election is over.
China always holds the belief that democracy is not a decorative ornament, but an instrument for addressing the issues that concern the people. A democracy that only provides people with channels to express their wishes but not ways to fulfill them is not a true democracy.
In China, the people’s status as masters of the country is the essence of people’s democracy. The country’s whole-process people’s democracy ensures that the people’s voices are heard and their wishes are represented in every aspect of China’s political and social life.
China’s democracy is a true democracy that works. It ensures that the people’s demands can be freely expressed and effectively fulfilled and that the Chinese people are both the builders and beneficiaries of democracy.
In recent years, China has achieved major strategic achievements in the fight against COVID-19, historically eliminated absolute poverty, and built a moderately prosperous society in all respects and resolved a series of major risks. The country has embarked on a new journey to fully build a modern socialist country and is marching toward the goal of common prosperity.
These achievements couldn’t have been made without the efforts of the Chinese people empowered by the Chinese democracy.
China’s tremendous achievements in development have proved that its whole-process people’s democracy is reasonable and effective, and has promoted the development and progress of the country and stimulated the creativity of the people, pointed out famous Egyptian jurist Shuki Said.
High-quality democracy in China has improved the system, capacity and efficiency of national governance.
China’s whole-process people’s democracy, created and developed in line with the country’s national conditions, contributes a new model to the international political spectrum. It’s believed that Chinese democracy will surely show stronger vitality and make greater contributions to the progress of human civilization.
