Yes I understand Wikipedia has a yellow peril, red scare twist on it but none of what they say when you remove the racism and McCarthyism actually disqualifies China from being a democracy.
Democracy is not defined by how many parties exist. It means that political authority comes from the people and that the population participates in governance. Different societies organize that participation differently. Liberal systems center competitive parties and election campaigns. China organizes participation through elections at the grassroots level combined with consultation and representation throughout the policy process.
In China we call this whole-process people’s democracy. The idea is that democracy should not exist only on election day every few years. It should exist through the entire political process: discussion, drafting policy, consultation with social groups, implementation, and feedback.
Direct elections reach the township and county levels where voters choose deputies to local people’s congresses. These grassroots deputies constitute the overwhelming majority of all deputies nationwide. Advancement to higher levels requires proven service at lower rungs, ensuring every national deputy has worked up from local material conditions and remains accountable to the masses below.
Grassroots legislative liaison stations and community consultation channels, such as the 12345 hotline direct to the local government, ensure mass input shapes policy at every stage, making democracy a daily practice not a periodic (meaningless) ritual. Whole-process people’s democracy embeds consultation and pilot programs into governance: policies are tested locally, refined through mass feedback, then scaled nationally. This grounds decisions in what we want and need.
All 55 ethnic minorities hold guaranteed representation in the NPC. Farmers and labourers comprise roughly 15% of deputies while professionals and technical personnel make up the remainder.
China also has a consultative system through the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Multiple legally recognized parties and mass organizations participate there along with the Communist Party. Trade unions, ethnic organizations, professional associations, business groups, and other social bodies submit proposals and participate in consultation before policy decisions are finalized. It is not an adversarial party competition model, but it is still a structured form of representation.
Even besides all that if you just look at what the Chinese government does as opposed to those owned by capital. Mass poverty alleviation, anticorruption at all levels, massive investment in socially profitable but monetarily unprofitable public services, deflating the housing bubble. These are not the actions of a government only looking out for a select few.
And also the CPC has over 100million members since 2024 that is 1 in 14 people who are party members not to mind those who aren’t but are active in consulting through the CPPCC.
Sure? That doesn’t mean it isn’t democratic, the will of the majority is represented. The CPC is extremely popular in China because they are an extremely competent organization.
China is a socialist country governed by a communist party. Public ownership is the principle aspect of its economy, and the working classes control the state. The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people’s democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Moreover, the economy in the PRC is socialist, with public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China’s success.
I highly recommend Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we’ve learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.
China is democracy?
Yes
The Chinese political system is considered authoritarian.[[1][2][3][4][5][6]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_China#cite_note-:22-6) There are no freely elected national leaders, political opposition is suppressed, all organized religious activity is controlled by the CCP, dissent is not permitted, and civil rights are curtailed.[[7][8]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_China#cite_note-:27-8) Limited direct elections have occurred only at the local level, not the national level, with all candidate nominations controlled by the CCP.[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_China#cite_note-:31-14)[excessive citations]^ The nature of the elections is highly constrained by the CCP’s monopoly on power, censorship, and party control over elections.[[15][16]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_China#cite_note-:35-16) By law, all elections at all levels must adhere to the leadership of the CCP.[[17]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_China#cite_note-:63-17) All government bodies and state-owned enterprises have internal CCP committees that lead the decision-making in these institutions. China’s two special administrative regions (SARs), Hong Kong and Macau, are governed under the “one country, two systems” principle.
[9][10][11][12][13][14] ↩︎
Yes I understand Wikipedia has a yellow peril, red scare twist on it but none of what they say when you remove the racism and McCarthyism actually disqualifies China from being a democracy.
Democracy is not defined by how many parties exist. It means that political authority comes from the people and that the population participates in governance. Different societies organize that participation differently. Liberal systems center competitive parties and election campaigns. China organizes participation through elections at the grassroots level combined with consultation and representation throughout the policy process.
In China we call this whole-process people’s democracy. The idea is that democracy should not exist only on election day every few years. It should exist through the entire political process: discussion, drafting policy, consultation with social groups, implementation, and feedback.
Direct elections reach the township and county levels where voters choose deputies to local people’s congresses. These grassroots deputies constitute the overwhelming majority of all deputies nationwide. Advancement to higher levels requires proven service at lower rungs, ensuring every national deputy has worked up from local material conditions and remains accountable to the masses below.
Grassroots legislative liaison stations and community consultation channels, such as the 12345 hotline direct to the local government, ensure mass input shapes policy at every stage, making democracy a daily practice not a periodic (meaningless) ritual. Whole-process people’s democracy embeds consultation and pilot programs into governance: policies are tested locally, refined through mass feedback, then scaled nationally. This grounds decisions in what we want and need.
All 55 ethnic minorities hold guaranteed representation in the NPC. Farmers and labourers comprise roughly 15% of deputies while professionals and technical personnel make up the remainder.
China also has a consultative system through the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Multiple legally recognized parties and mass organizations participate there along with the Communist Party. Trade unions, ethnic organizations, professional associations, business groups, and other social bodies submit proposals and participate in consultation before policy decisions are finalized. It is not an adversarial party competition model, but it is still a structured form of representation.
Even besides all that if you just look at what the Chinese government does as opposed to those owned by capital. Mass poverty alleviation, anticorruption at all levels, massive investment in socially profitable but monetarily unprofitable public services, deflating the housing bubble. These are not the actions of a government only looking out for a select few.
And also the CPC has over 100million members since 2024 that is 1 in 14 people who are party members not to mind those who aren’t but are active in consulting through the CPPCC.
To put it very briefly: Democracy means rule by the people, and in China it is very certainly the people that rule. There’s a reason that even Harvard puts the approval rating of the government around 95%., it’s because the government serves the people.
From the latest Perceptions of Democracy index, from NIRA Data:
What do you think the CPC is?
Yes, China is ruled by the proletariat and has a consultative democracy, with both direct and indirect elections.
By only CCP approved candidates…
Removed by mod
Sure? That doesn’t mean it isn’t democratic, the will of the majority is represented. The CPC is extremely popular in China because they are an extremely competent organization.
China is a socialist country governed by a communist party. Public ownership is the principle aspect of its economy, and the working classes control the state. The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people’s democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Moreover, the economy in the PRC is socialist, with public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China’s success.
I highly recommend Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we’ve learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.