In the early 1940s, a popular saying vividly captured the enthusiasm among local voters in Yan'an of Shaanxi Province where the Communist Party of China (CPC) was based. 

It stated, "Beans roll, beans vote, beans go to the right bowls."

In those years, the CPC devised a simple method to ensure that illiterate farmers exercised their right to vote. Voters cast beans representing ballots into bowls: there was one bowl for each candidate.

From revolutionary times to the founding of New China in 1949, the CPC has led the nation in exploring and developing a model of democracy that suits China's conditions, with the people as "masters of the country." 

Delivering a speech at a grand gathering in Beijing on July 1 to mark the Party's centenary, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, highlighted the development of "whole-process people's democracy." 

The term whole-process democracy was first put forward by Xi, who is also China's president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, during an inspection tour of Shanghai's Hongqiao subdistrict in November 2019. 

Exchanging ideas with community residents who took part in a survey on legislation, Xi said, "We are marching on a political development road of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and our people's democracy is a whole-process democracy." 

In 2014, at a ceremony marking the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's national political advisory body, Xi said, "Democracy is defined not only by people's right to vote in an election but also by the right to participate in political affairs on a daily basis." 

According to experts, a series of institutional arrangements ensure that the mode of democracy in China guarantees people's right to take part in democratic elections, consultations, decision-making, management and oversight, which constitutes whole-process democracy. 

In contrast to Western-style democracy, which is often characterized by voting in elections every few years, Chinese democracy is a daily way of life for the people that leads to effective results. 

Wang Chen, vice chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, said during this year's NPC session in March that whole-process democracy is "a hall-mark of socialist democracy that distinguishes it from various capitalist democratic systems."

At the session, the NPC adopted amendments to two laws concerning its organization and working procedures, with whole-process democracy written into law for the first time in the country's legislative history.

People's participation

Xia Yunlong, a retired college teacher who has lived in Hongqiao in Shanghai for 30 years, was given the title of information officer when a community-level contact station was set up by the NPC Standing Committee in 2015.

Draft laws are sent to these stations so that citizens can discuss them and voice their opinions to lawmakers. The Hongqiao station was set up as part of the nation's efforts to diversify channels for people to participate and share their views on major legislative undertakings. 

An information officer gathers suggestions for draft laws, which are then reviewed by the country's legislative bodies, making it easier for residents to make their voices heard at the national level. 

"Being old is a disadvantage for doing many things, but it certainly helps for gathering opinions as I have come to know a lot of people in our neighborhood," Xia said. "Before a draft law is to be enacted, I ask many people, neighbors, relatives, students and their parents, for their feedbacks."

He is extremely proud of a suggestion he made that citizens should be encouraged to sing the national anthem at "proper places and events" to express their love for the nation. The suggestion was written into the National Anthem Law of the People's Republic of China, which took effect in 2017.

You Yuanchao, a civil servant for Changning district people's congress, who works at the Hongqiao contact station, said opinions have been received from the public relating to 55 laws. More than 1,000 suggestions have been made, with 92 of them adopted. 

"A working mechanism for the contact station was established from scratch, including eight steps from accepting a legislative inquiry to final suggestions being submitted," You said.

Deputies to the Beijing Municipal People's Congress conduct an inspection on garbage sorting in a residential community in Beijing on May 12.

The suggestions come mainly from information officers, whose numbers have risen over the years to 310, he said. 

"We have professionals from local judicial bodies and also lawyers serving as our consultants. They provide support for the information officers and help turn the colloquial language people use into the correct terminology for legislation," You explained. 

When the contact station receives a draft law for public opinion, You and his colleagues work out a plan to assess who will be most affected by the law, the amount of inquiries to be handled and the number of seminars and discussions that are needed. 

"We also organize study sessions on the drafts so that people learn related information and can prepare better suggestions," You said. 

Wu Xinhui, partner and attorney at the K&M Law Firm, who has provided legal aid and counseling for Hongqiao subdistrict since 2010, is also an information officer at the contact station. 

Wu said as a lawyer focusing on civil and domestic affairs for 12 years, she identifies loopholes that need to be addressed in current legislation. She also collates related cases to provide feedback to the national legislature.

Wu said her suggestion that seniors be included in the Anti-Domestic Violence Law was adopted, adding that she raised it after handling a case where the rights of an elderly person were infringed upon by that individual's children.

"This is a good way to send grassroots views to national legislators, while also reflecting the democratic process of our country's making of laws," she said.

Wu also submitted suggestions for the draft of the nation's first Civil Code and amendments to the Law on the Protection of Minors and the Law on Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency.

When Xi visited the contact station's office at the Gubei Civic Center in Shanghai in 2019, Wu updated him on public legal aid and services work.

A special zone has been set up at the civic center to display the contact station's work. "There has been a clear increase in the awareness about and participation in our work, as many people come to see the display, learn about our working system and see the results. People care about whether their suggestions can make a difference," Wu said.

Various channels 

Zhu Lingjun, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, said setting up these grassroots contact stations helps promote more-targeted legislation.

He said the Party has integrated the "mass line" into its governance activities, ensuring that it can hear the voice of the people on decision-making, policy implementation and oversight.

Zhu added that consultative democracy in China avoids the formalism of democracy in many countries, where people only have the right to vote but are not entitled to widespread participation. 

Tang Yalin, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University, said China's whole-process democracy places emphasis on executing decisions, supervision and evaluation with the participation of the people, while electoral democracy in the Western world ends right after the election. 

China's democracy has different manifestations, which invites the masses to participate in economic and cultural management. "Before big decisions are made, we have extensive consultations." 

"Democracy has many forms, and Western style democracy is not the only type… What the Western world has not seen is how the CPC has achieved restricting power by itself," Tang said. China's rapid development in the past 40 years is obvious to all. 

Staff members of the Standing Committee of the Xiangyang Municipal People's Congress solicit public opinions on the Yangtze River Protection Law (Draft) in Xiangyang of Hubei Province on September 9, 2020.

"No system is perfect. State governance is meant to achieve the best interest and lessen the harm to the lowest. For China, safeguarding the interests of ordinary people is the top priority. Under the leadership of the CPC, the country has boosted development, achieved social prosperity, promoted national reunification and world peace," he said.

There are a number of channels for people to voice their opinions in China, Tang said. These include public opinion hearings and expert symposiums convened before the publication of major laws, plans, policies and projects. Opinions can also be voiced through websites.

"China has constantly explored and improved ways to involve the people in the whole process of democracy in line with development and changes in society," Tang said, adding that Internet use is a new trend.

Last year, while drafting proposals to draw up the nation's blueprint for the next five years and objectives through 2035, the central leadership called for efforts to reach out to the people and incorporate their brilliant ideas in the plan.

Heading the drafting group, Xi stressed that top-level design should be combined with public opinion and encouraged people from all walks of life to put forward their suggestions.

In August last year, netizens' suggestions and advice for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) draft were sought online, the first time this practice had been adopted for the formulation of such an important document. 

Xinhua News Agency released a video last year featuring a netizen whose opinions on an aging society were included in the document.

Li Dianbo, a village official in Dalad Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, suggested online that a mutual assistance elderly care model be established in rural areas. 

In Li's village, two thirds of the 1,200 or so permanent residents are seniors whose children have left to find work in cities. He deals with the tough task of senior care in rural areas every day.

Li suggested that in densely populated rural areas the government build public canteens and dormitories for seniors willing to live together. Those who are relatively younger and more able could take care of seniors who are older and weaker, forming a mutual support and elderly care system.

His idea was later incorporated in the blueprint document by the central authorities. Li said, "The document was drafted by the central leadership in the interests of the people, and also with the participation of the people at the grassroots level."

More than 1 million suggestions on the 14th Five-Year Plan were received online, according to official data. In addition, the Party leadership listened to opinions voiced at several symposiums by non-Party members, entrepreneurs and experts in various fields.

Han Wenxiu, deputy head of the Office of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs, who took part in drafting the document, said that the scope of opinion-seeking, the number of participants and the range of forums were unprecedented. 

Effective democracy

Evandro Carvalho, a legal expert from Brazil, told Xinhua that China's socialist democracy is "not only a democracy in form, but in substance." 

This democracy is not limited to the democratic decision-making process, but also focuses on its outcome, said Carvalho, a former visiting scholar in China and law professor at Brazil's Getulio Vargas Foundation, an economic think tank. 

Institutional arrangements for China's democracy involve procedural aspects and public participation, with the aim of finding solutions to the problems people face, Carvalho said. 

"Unlike several Western democracies that increasingly alienate the people from the political process and ignore their needs, the Chinese government wants to listen more to the population and monitor the execution of measures to meet people's needs with the use of technology," he said. 

"China is building a democracy with Chinese characteristics that involves more public participation and is more connected to the reality and interests of the people than many Western democracies," Carvalho stated. 

Meanwhile, Tang said electoral democracy in Western capitalist countries is a manifestation of the interests of political parties and capital, or a "populism ballot carnival" held by politicians to manipulate public opinion for their own specific interests.

Western democracy moves to "mutual veto" instead of "mutual supervision," he said. "Originally, it should have worked for people's interests, but it has become a battle between the interests of different parties and the interests of different capital groups. Such electoral democracy only cares about the here and now, not the long term, which is irresponsible."

"As a result, it deviates from public interest and has actually kidnapped public interest, which will cause potential risks to the prosperity and unity of the state," Tang said. 

The operating mechanism for democracy in China does not rely on elections based on multiparty competition, in which people vote for leaders every few years but barely take part in national affairs in their daily lives afterward, he said.

Democracy in China is not a narrow voting process. Instead, it's a process in which people's opinions are heard and absorbed into national policies, Tang explained.

"The CPC doesn't pursue self-interest, and the supreme value of the Party resides in the Chinese people and Chinese national interests," he added.

Zhu said that in Western democracy, a change in the ruling party results in a change in policies. But under China's system, on the premise that the CPC has the ruling role and decides the Party's basic line, outstanding cadres are selected and appointed to ensure this line is implemented.

"Politicians in China don't need to spend a lot of money and time on election campaigns. What they need to do is to serve the people with their heart and soul, and they cannot shirk their responsibilities at any time," he added.

(The National People's Congress 2021 Issue 3)