Lately, there have been two contradictory messages coming out of China. They have both been used to explain the Chinese leadership’s view of the country’s rivalry with the United States and the political makeover underway in Hong Kong, which just held carefully controlled elections for a new pro-Beijing local legislature.
The first message is that Western democracy is dead or dying and that China’s top-down, centrally directed socialist system is the model of the future. According to this view, democracies of the West have proved to be messy and chaotic, and fraught with violence, racism, rule by wealthy elites and rampant individualism. China boasts an “accountability system” — its leaders eschew the term “authoritarian” — that prizes obedience over individual rights.
As evidence of the superiority of the Chinese system, they say, Western democracies have failed in their response to the covid-19 pandemic because of their emphasis on personal freedom over the common good. China has largely kept infections to a minimum through draconian lockdowns, aggressive digital tracking and mandatory mass testing, all of which would be anathema in the West.
But in recent weeks, China’s Communist Party leadership has been pushing a very different message through weighty pronouncements, official-sounding “white papers” and commentaries in state-controlled media. The new message is: We’re a democracy, too!
A Dec. 4 white paper issued by the ruling State Council declared, “Democracy is a common value of humanity and an ideal that has always been cherished by the Communist Party of China.”
“Whether a country is democratic depends on whether its people are truly the masters of the country; whether the people have the right to vote, and more importantly, the right to participate extensively,” the paper said. Communist China, it said, “is a true democracy that works.”
As for Hong Kong’s elections held on Dec. 19? The most popular politicians are in jail or in exile, and the main opposition Democratic Party decided to ignore an election that was stacked against it. The turnout was about 30 percent, the lowest of any election here since colonial times. As expected, pro-China candidates swept the seats, and the new legislature will be without any dissenting voices.
Yet China’s response was to call this the most democratic election ever — “democracy with Hong Kong characteristics,” according to yet another white paper issued by Beijing after the polls closed.
The public apathy about the election was predictable. More Hongkongers seemed to take advantage of the free Election Day public transport to visit Disneyland or the Ocean Park amusement center and to venture onto hiking trails than to bother turning up for elections with a preordained conclusion. So why did China bother with the exercise at all?
China could have easily appointed members of the local legislature, as it did just before the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from British to Chinese sovereignty. Beijing, angered at outgoing colonial governor Chris Patten expanding the franchise, appointed a so-called provisional legislature that took over for the popularly elected council just after midnight, when the Chinese flag was raised.
This time, Beijing said the goal was to end the paralyzing political debates that often hamstrung the old legislature, with its sizable pro-democracy contingent. It intended to create a new “patriots-only” lawmaking council that would show fealty to Communist China and endorse the local government’s policies without the rancor of the past.
But for all the talk of the superiority of the Communist Party-led system, China’s leaders still crave the imprimatur of democracy. Democracies might be chaotic and messy — witness the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. But they also carry the unmistakable stamp of popular legitimacy.
One lesson I learned from decades covering single-party states, military regimes and dictatorships in Southeast Asia, Africa and parts of the Middle East is that autocratic governments like to try to legitimize their rule through periodic elections — even heavily stage-managed ones where the outcome is guaranteed. Most countries in the world now have some sort of elections. But most elections around the world do not equal democracy.
The most recent Democracy Index, compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, lists only 23 countries as “full democracies” and 52, including the United States, as “flawed democracies.” (China comes near the bottom as “authoritarian.”)
China has recently renewed its promise to eventually allow Hongkongers to elect their top leader through universal suffrage. But whatever the authorities have in mind is very likely to resemble the last such proposal, in 2014, in which candidates would be pre-vetted and approved by Beijing.
That proposal was roundly rejected as a betrayal of China’s promises and only a facade of true democracy, leading to the 79-day “Umbrella Movement” that was the precursor to the 2019 unrest. Now Hong Kong’s residents are left with elections with no real choice, Beijing in complete control and “democracy” reduced to buzzwords in official white papers.
It has Chinese characteristics. But you’d be hard-pressed to call it democracy.
Keith B. Richburg is director of the University of Hong Kong Journalism and Media Studies Centre and a former Post correspondent.