Rethinking Democracy in Contemporary China: from the Search for an Alternative Modernity to the “Democracy that works”

Abstract

Starting from China’s willingness to think democracy outside the Western conceptual framework, and in an attempt to distance ourselves from both the Eurocentric perspective and the one that supports Chinese exceptionalism, this essay offers a reflection on the meaning of the concept of democracy in China (minzhu 民主) adopting a conceptual history approach from a global viewpoint. The discourse on democracy has generally served the Chinese Communist Party to emphasize its leading role as representative of all social classes. Considering this evolution, the recent proliferation of discourse on democracy propagated by Xi Jinping should come as no surprise. Since the beginning of his first term, he has forged his own version of democracy, describing the Chinese democratic system as an intra-party consultative and deliberative process based on meritocracy. Xi Jinping defines the democratic model as changeable and adaptable to the peculiarities of each context, proposing for the first time in 2019, at the height of the clashes with Trump, the expression “Whole-process People’s democracy” (quanguocheng minzhu 全过程民主), defining it as a “democracy that works”.