Inside China's unique model of governance

Last week I had the privilege to attend the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China, a high-level political event that is held every after five years to determine the Chinese future in the five years to come and beyond. Attending the different sessions of the seven-day meeting that ended on Wednesday this week gave me an insight into the Chinese leadership that I found intriguing, and to say the least, an alternative consensual style of democracy, far from the traditional and west-influenced democracy we are accustomed to. Held at the imposing Great Hall of the People in the capital Beijing, the meeting, chaired by Chinese President, Xi Jinping, who also doubles as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, brought together over 2,000 officials in the senior most leadership positions of the country. As widely anticipated, the meeting on Wednesday re-elected Xi as the party leader for a second five-year term and is one of the leaders who will constitute the powerful CPC Politiburo. Back to the opening ceremony last week, President Xi laid out the party’s and, by extension, the country’s political programme, as they continue to pursue their medium-term goal of ensuring a moderately prosperous society by 2020 and “great modern socialist country,” by mid 21st century. He delivered the three and half hour speech in Chinese, and with no simultaneous translation, it was rather torturous to some of us (non-Chinese speakers) but thanks to the organisers the translated version was immediately distributed the moment he stepped off the podium. He said that in the first stage from 2020 to 2035, the CPC will build on the foundation created by the moderately prosperous society with a further 15 years of hard work to see that socialist modernisation is basically realised. In the second stage, from 2035 to the middle of the 21st century, the CPC will, building on having basically achieved modernisation, work hard for a further 15 years and develop China into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful, he said. “The principal contradiction facing Chinese society has evolved to be that between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life.” Now, without delving too much into Xi’s political programme, the most striking thing for me is how this programme was arrived at and which I believe should be food for thought for the rest of us, especially in the face of global political uncertainties occasioned by nationalism. The roadmap was arrived at after a series of consultations that started from research through which a consortium of organisations constituting scholars and special interest groups combed the country to identify the outstanding trends, to ensure it is tailored to the actual needs of the people. This scientific outlook, of course, was mainstreamed into the socialism style anchored on their traditional style of leadership based on Maxisim-Leninism, Mao Zedong thought and the Deng Xhiaoping theory. Both Mao and Deng are former Chinese leaders. To get the scientific outlook, the party commissioned 59 organisations to conduct research on 21 key topics, resulting into 80 reports. The drafting group set up nine taskforces and sent them to conduct field research in the 16 provinces that make up China, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government and also made use of 25 dedicated national think tanks. At the centre of these consultations were the fundamental interests of the people in their pursuit of, as they term it, building a society of moderate prosperity in all aspects. Diverse people contributed to the process and these included government, forum for people’s organisations, representatives of autonomous regions and retired senior party officials. Others consulted are other political parties, industrialists and public figures (opinion leaders) without party affiliation among many others. Most, if not all these groups, were represented at the congress. What equally amazed me is the efforts – I was told mainly championed by Xi since becoming the party leader five years ago – to enforce accountability by those that hold leadership position in China. To ensure this, all those that hold positions of leadership are bound by what they call Three Stricts and Three Ernests; these are; strict with oneself in practicing self-cultivation, using power and exercising self discipline. The Ernests are in thinking, work and behaviour. Indeed as it was stressed by a senior party official, Yang Xiaodu, in a news briefing, Xi’s leadership has made self-governance a strategy of crucial significance the philosophy that “you would rather offend thousands (of leaders) rather than the 1.3 billion Chinese” that look to them for delivery of services. With China currently the second biggest economy in the world, Xi’s political programme will probably propel them to the global summit and from what I saw during my eight-day stay in China and my interactions with different people, this is very much within their reach. The writer is an editor with The New Times. The views expressed in this article are of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Times.

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Inside China's unique model of governance