The architect of Chinese style democracy?
Fang Ning is one of major authors of "China's construction of political democracy," he mentioned that more than 100 scholars have also contributed to this work. This white paper is just too long for me, and seemingly boring and old-fashioned enough. I really don't have appetite to finish my reading. However his interactions with netizens several days ago on the People daily's public forum were much more straight forward...
Something that I found interesting as Fang Ning said:
"I believe, China cannot adopt the election based on a competitive base right now. It is not because Chinese don't qualify that kind of democracy. Indian's qualification is not better than us, but they have elections for 50 years. I have done a special research on this problem, and there are 3 reasons why China cannot extensively carry out the competitive election presently. First of all, at present we are unable to solve the problem of the unjustified exchange between economic benefits and the political rights, which is also existing in the western developed countries. Currently in China, because different classes start to separate out from each other, certain special interest groups holding massive power and resources are emerging. Secondly, in the competitive election, the cost of whole society is extremely high, this is something not well known by our people. Our institute had a invited lecture by a election expert from US. You just can't believe how much US has spent on the last president election. Finally, the culture of competitive election in fact is a culture of conflicts which is probably ok for developed countries but is almost universally harmful for developing countries. I will conduct more research on this topic and I may publish my research after systemizing my thoughts."
It is very sad to see him hiding from the reality. Instead of exchanging economic benefits for political power, in the opposite way, the special interest groups are trading their political power for economic benefits NOW! Even worse, every thing is under the table. One thing I agree with him: "certain special interest groups holding massive power and resources are emerging!" In order to verify his second point, Fang should put up a model to calculate how much US will lose without a competitive election. With this kind of comparison, nobody can be convinced that the cost of election is not the necessary evil, no matter for China or US. His final point is based on an empirical observation and I have been puzzled by the same problem for long as well, that why I am always looking, looking for the answers to the good example such as Botswana, good-and-bad example such as India...Anybody has a clue here?
Basically Fang is looking for an excuse for the Chinese style election based on recommendations. Well, we do his some kind of dreaming mechanisms in ancient China such as "举贤" (recommend virtuous officals) and "禅让" (turn over throne to the best candidate available? sorry for the translation if you don't understand). But it seems that never worked.
Also on the criteria of a good Chinese democracy for today's China:
Fang Ning said:
"1. The democracy has to keep our nation united. 2. The democracy has to maintain the growth of the economy. 3. The democracy has to gradually increase people's rights."
Apparently, the democracy is just a tool for leaders, and this explains why personal interests have to be scarified whenever necessary for "national benefits". Worst of all, people can say nothing about it!
The conclusion of mine?
We have to look for a better candidate for constructing China's future democracy.
Something that I found interesting as Fang Ning said:
"I believe, China cannot adopt the election based on a competitive base right now. It is not because Chinese don't qualify that kind of democracy. Indian's qualification is not better than us, but they have elections for 50 years. I have done a special research on this problem, and there are 3 reasons why China cannot extensively carry out the competitive election presently. First of all, at present we are unable to solve the problem of the unjustified exchange between economic benefits and the political rights, which is also existing in the western developed countries. Currently in China, because different classes start to separate out from each other, certain special interest groups holding massive power and resources are emerging. Secondly, in the competitive election, the cost of whole society is extremely high, this is something not well known by our people. Our institute had a invited lecture by a election expert from US. You just can't believe how much US has spent on the last president election. Finally, the culture of competitive election in fact is a culture of conflicts which is probably ok for developed countries but is almost universally harmful for developing countries. I will conduct more research on this topic and I may publish my research after systemizing my thoughts."
It is very sad to see him hiding from the reality. Instead of exchanging economic benefits for political power, in the opposite way, the special interest groups are trading their political power for economic benefits NOW! Even worse, every thing is under the table. One thing I agree with him: "certain special interest groups holding massive power and resources are emerging!" In order to verify his second point, Fang should put up a model to calculate how much US will lose without a competitive election. With this kind of comparison, nobody can be convinced that the cost of election is not the necessary evil, no matter for China or US. His final point is based on an empirical observation and I have been puzzled by the same problem for long as well, that why I am always looking, looking for the answers to the good example such as Botswana, good-and-bad example such as India...Anybody has a clue here?
Basically Fang is looking for an excuse for the Chinese style election based on recommendations. Well, we do his some kind of dreaming mechanisms in ancient China such as "举贤" (recommend virtuous officals) and "禅让" (turn over throne to the best candidate available? sorry for the translation if you don't understand). But it seems that never worked.
Also on the criteria of a good Chinese democracy for today's China:
Fang Ning said:
"1. The democracy has to keep our nation united. 2. The democracy has to maintain the growth of the economy. 3. The democracy has to gradually increase people's rights."
Apparently, the democracy is just a tool for leaders, and this explains why personal interests have to be scarified whenever necessary for "national benefits". Worst of all, people can say nothing about it!
The conclusion of mine?
We have to look for a better candidate for constructing China's future democracy.
posted by BFF @ 10:41 PM
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