Essays

Chinese Democracy

Mao Zedong is perhaps the most famous Chinese person outside of China, thus it may come as no surprise that he occupies the center of many Chinese political paintings. One such painting, titled “Beginning of Spring” 《初春》, has not only been displayed at museum exhibits, but replicas have spread to various places across China from Tianjin to Chengdu to Shenzhen.

Liu Yuyi, who painted this work, is the dean of the art college at Beijing Normal University and was recently the subject of a biopic documentary film. He was also a long-standing member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). 

The CPPCC is a political advisory body with more than 2200 members which advises the government on all sorts of issues facing the state and society. Its representatives come from minor political parties, social organizations, and experts from many sectors, with the aim of helping the government resolve issues where politicians have little expertise. 

This type of consultation process predates the 1949 founding of the People’s Republic of China. Many non-specialists can tell you that Deng Xiaoping succeeded Mao, yet it is Zhang Lan, the founder of the Democratic League and first vice-chairman of the CPPCC, who is standing next to Chairman Mao in Liu’s prolific painting.

In the wake of World War II, before Mao’s revolutionary army faced off against Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist army, both sides held a series of negotiations to settle their dispute over who should rule China. This culminated in Mao and Chiang toasting each other in what would become known as the October 10th Double Tenth Agreement. One of the major points of agreement was that China needed a consultative body to represent all of China in the drafting of a new constitution and seating of a new congress.

When the first Political Consultative Congress was held in 1946, Zhang Lan’s Democratic League and the other groups constituting the “Third Force” outnumbered both the Guomindang and the Communist party in elected delegates at the National Constituent Assembly. 

Mao Zedong ultimately walked away from this process in 1948 sparking civil war. Because they were anti-militant, the Third Force was no longer a decider in the future of Chinese democracy. Its members were forced to choose, and they split between Mao and Chiang.  

Nevertheless, the Communist Party does not rule alone in Beijing today. Indeed, China’s current party-state government is still heavily reliant upon its consultation with those who are not Party members, and the CPPCC is at the heart of this process.

While China experienced decades of tumult after 1949, the current Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his longtime ally Wang Huning (who was recently elected as the Chairman of the CPPCC), are seeking to rehabilitate the unique characteristics of Chinese social democracy that originated from Zhang Lan’s Democratic League and have continued through the CPPCC.

China never had only one path to modernity; nor has it ever been that case that the current state was inevitable. 

Frequently lost are the stories of alternative modernities that were desired by many ordinary people, in many places, and at many times in China’s recent past. Yet, while these stories are relatively rare in the West, in China today many of the most well-known political theorists, philosophers, historians, and even politicians, themselves, are now looking back in order to chart the path forward. 

For example, Xi Jinping on numerous occasions has delivered speeches about the value of Chinese traditional culture, including Confucianism. He has  praised "consultative democracy" in books and speeches. More recently, the political scientist Zhang Weiwei has tried to recast Western democracy as “procedural democracy” which he claims is inferior to his concept of “people’s democracy” – and he is not alone. The Canadian scholar Daniel Bell, who was famously the “Dean of Shandong” and many others along with him, have written volumes on the idea of a new Confucian Democracy for East Asia.

Yet, these ideas are not at all new. We can trace them back to those who sought to create a different China in the 1930s and 1940s – the Third Force. 

There have been a number of books written about the Democratic Socialists, China Youth Party, the Rural Reconstruction Party, the Democratic League, the Third Force, and the Minor Parties and Groups as a whole; but few, if any, works have looked at this topic since Xi Jinping’s rise to power, his “Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” and the new merger of Marxism and Confucianism today – the implications of these processes and platforms stretch beyond the borders of the People’s Republic of China.

Therefore, my research examines the creation of the China Democratic League and seeks to discover how the Minor Parties and Groups related to each other, and to Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek. My work traces the lineage of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Congress  from the Double Tenth Agreement in 1945 to the retreat of the Guomindang to Taiwan in 1949 to the establishment of the People's Congress in 1954, and beyond.

I examine the interactions and outcomes for potential evidence on how this process might have implications for the contemporary push by Beijing to create not just a “Beijing Model,” but perhaps also a “Beijing Consensus” that stands in opposition to the Western Liberal democracies and the so-called Washington Consensus.

From the 8th Party Congress in 1956, when the Communist Party finally controlled the whole of the mainland and began to institute their agenda, to the 18th Party Congress that ushered the princeling Xi Jinping into office as the new great helmsman, the United Front and NPPCC have been among the largest sponsors of legitimacy and authority for the Communist Party. Thus, as Xi Jinping seeks to leave his legacy and to continue deepening reforms, these unique existing political platforms and processes will undoubtedly play a pivotal role.