I can see a lot of problems with this. but more importantly what does this even achieve? it doesnt seem like something that would fix any of China's current issues.
Chinese Internal Politics
- Thread starter FairAndUnbiased
- Start date
China has had it's own politcal system for thousands of years , it doesn't need a popular vote system for leadership cause the west says its the unquestionable absolute best system. It needs a to refine system to understand the goals and problems of the population and attempt to address them.
@Reclaimer tthe question I want to ask YOU IS WHY? and what's the need for such a change? And to who's benefit is the change your imagining or pining for? In other words, what's the end goal of you aim to achieve? Or are you just one of these western boot lickers that are too chicken shit to say it out loud.
Universal suffrage hasn't worked in any country and in the modern era with digital technology like social media it has become a disastrous system. Western countries rose up in a system where either only a small minority could vote (Britain and US) or the elected politicians had less power than the monarchs (Germany). Elections are a mechanism for chaos. If politicians have to compete for votes, they'll focus on short term priorities and competence is not a very big criteria for selecting who people vote for.
The only advantage of having an electoral system is that in a crisis people rarely question the system, because they know someone else might win the next election. But this actually makes governments lazy. The communist party knows it has to deliver. They're only human and nobody expects them to do everything perfectly, but they also have to reach some minimum level of competence compared to other countries.
Elections also breed corruption. In poor countries, candidates often directly bribe voters. In more sophisticated systems, politicians make laws to reward their own voters.
Electing the head of a national government is as smart a policy as having the logistics staff at Amazon elect the CEO. China is run more like a corporation, in which competent workers are promoted into executive positions.
General elections (of which you see pretty much happening across the world) won't work well if your voterbase is stupid, underinformed, and lack the necessary capacity to analyse & rationalize.
Sorry to be blunt, but that's the reality.
Sorry to be blunt, but that's the reality.
That's all of them. Every population on Earth is too stupid to govern itself.
That's why the pre WW1 European electoral systems worked fairly well. In the UK voting rights were restricted to rich men and in Germany the votes of rich people were given greater weight in parliamentary elections. If you have an oligarchy for industrialists, you will get more industrialization (at the cost of labour rights)
I don't see what such a change would contribute towards developing the political system. The area of responsibility for the general secretary is so far removed from the average voter that it is very unlikely that a voter can make an informed vote.
China should always strive towards reforms in the democratic direction, especially now that many voters will be the highly educated youth.
But the point of democratization is to bring the government more in line with the people's needs and expectations.
China is walking on relatively uncharted ground. In history, there have been few governments with as close knit relations to the nation's constituents as Beijing has. And among those few, those who were superpowers and ruled such large nations, there are none. New democratic processes must be experimented with to improve the cohesion and satisfaction of the nation, but in such uncharted territory, Beijing must be wary of accidentally taking steps backwards while trying to go forwards.
China should always strive towards reforms in the democratic direction, especially now that many voters will be the highly educated youth.
But the point of democratization is to bring the government more in line with the people's needs and expectations.
China is walking on relatively uncharted ground. In history, there have been few governments with as close knit relations to the nation's constituents as Beijing has. And among those few, those who were superpowers and ruled such large nations, there are none. New democratic processes must be experimented with to improve the cohesion and satisfaction of the nation, but in such uncharted territory, Beijing must be wary of accidentally taking steps backwards while trying to go forwards.
the electoral rights of the ordinary people tend to be correlated with economics and technology. this is the classic theory of historical materialism, which is supported by evidence.
From ancient times onwards, up until WW1, the average person was barely literate, and thus not educated enough to make an informed decision about governance. Monarchs and tyrants were the norm. Although the general trend even for monarchies has been towards granting more freedom towards citizens, still in 1900 the average country was a monarchy. From the major empires of Imperial Russia, China, Germany, Japan, UK, Turkey, etc. down to small countries like Egypt and Greece, emperors and kings were the governors of choice (or lack thereof). This was reasonable - if economics and technology only enabled a small portion of the population to have the time and energy to dedicate to learning statesmanship and governance, what better candidate than someone from a family literally raised from birth to govern?
Popular elections before 1920 were rare and mostly in places where major conquests and superprofits allowed people the spare time and education to think about governance; despite that, those elected still tended to be major business owners and generals, not an ordinary person.
starting in the early-mid 20th century there was a coincidence between the level of technology available and the spread of universal 9-12 year education. the average high school graduate could grasp the concepts of the day and make a somewhat informed decision. This is why we saw the explosion of popular electoral politics in this era, and an end to most kings and emperors. Mature industrialization demanded a massive, moderately educated population which could understand relevant issues and vote in their own interests. Thus the burdensome overhead of dealing with a royal family was done away with.
today, a similar situation may be occurring. I can't judge whether it actually is occurring, but there is evidence that the complexities of governance may once again be exceeding the citizen's capability to understand it. However, because the complexities can be learned in the context of a universally educated population there's no need to go back to royal families and raising rulers from birth. The economics dictate that a broad candidate pool is most effective, and to choose from the best candidates in that pool. The selection process may not necessarily be purely a popular vote anymore, as voters can be swayed away from their best interests.
You guys all made fair points, I definitely don't think the advantage of being able to chose a leader directly outweighs the problems that plague western political systems, such as uneducated voters, campaign promises broken, etc.
I'm wondering if it's possible to have the selection process of the General Secretary, Central Committee, etc. be more transparent? For example knowing publicly who endorsed whom and why.
I'm wondering if it's possible to have the selection process of the General Secretary, Central Committee, etc. be more transparent? For example knowing publicly who endorsed whom and why.