Long haul

The idea of ​​the possibility of a consistent transition to a constitutional republic first arose in China in 1911, when Sun Yat-sen came to power after the fall of the last imperial Qing dynasty. Following him, the need for evolution towards democracy was declared by Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, and current chairman Hu Jintao called democracy “the common goal of humanity.” However, China still lacks freedom of speech, an independent judiciary and other attributes of a liberal system. Polit.ru publishes an article by John Thornton , a professor at the School of Economics and Management and the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University (Beijing) , “The Long Path,” which talks about the history and prospects of China’s democratic development, which has been going on for about a century. The article was published in the publication "Foreign Affairs" (2008. No. 1), Russian translation provided by the magazine "Russia in Global Affairs" (2008. No. 2).

For nearly a hundred years, China's leaders have promised their people some form of democracy. After China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing dynasty, fell in 1911, Sun Yat-sen proposed a three-year period of temporary military rule, followed by a phase of "political training" to enable the transition to a full constitutional republic. In 1940, Mao Zedong addressed his followers with a program called “New Democracy.” During its implementation, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) promised to ensure the “democratic dictatorship” of revolutionary groups over class enemies. And Deng Xiaoping, leading the country out of the anarchy of the “cultural revolution,” proclaimed democracy “the main condition for the emancipation of consciousness.”

Sun Yat-sen, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping understood democracy as completely different things. Sun Yat-sen's definition envisioned constitutional government with universal suffrage, free elections, and separation of powers. This is closest to what is accepted in the West. Mao and Deng showed through their activities that, contrary to their claims, this concept meant little to them. All three policies agreed, however, on one thing: democracy is not an end in itself, but a mechanism that allows for the implementation of a real plan - to transform China into a state that will no longer be intimidated by foreign powers.

Ultimately, democracy failed under all three of these leaders. When Sun Yat-sen died in 1925, military-feudal relations and disunity still prevailed in many parts of the country. During the years of Mao's rule, it was not so much democracy that came to the fore as class struggle, mass movements, permanent revolution, and the desire to cut the ground from under opponents' feet. And Deng has demonstrated repeatedly—especially with the Tiananmen Square tragedy in 1989—that he will not allow popular democracy movements to end Party rule or derail his plans for national development.

Today China, of course, cannot be called a democratic state. The Communist Party has a monopoly on power. Freedom of speech, an independent judiciary and other fundamental attributes of a pluralistic liberal system are absent. Many observers both inside and outside China remain skeptical when it comes to the prospects for political reform. However, a lot is changing - in the government, the CCP, the economy and society as a whole. And these changes may affect the Chinese attitude towards democracy and determine the political future of the country.

In public speeches and informal conversations, Chinese leaders are once again turning to the theme of democracy. This time more and more often and in more detail. (This article is based on conversations conducted over the past 14 months with many representatives of different sectors of Chinese society, including members of the CPC Central Committee, which includes 370 senior officials, senior government officials, academics, judges, lawyers, journalists and leaders of non-governmental organizations.) President Hu Jintao called democracy "the common goal of mankind." During a visit to the United States in 2006, Hu opened every meeting with this topic. And Premier of the State Council (government - Ed.) Wen Jiabao, in his address to the National People's Congress in 2007, paid twice as much attention to democracy and the rule of law as in any of his previous speeches. “Developing democracy and improving the legal system,” Wen said, “are the basic requirements of the socialist system.”

Like previous leaders, the current generation of Chinese politicians has a different meaning to the concept of democracy than it does in the West. Senior figures stress that the CCP's leadership role should be maintained. They cannot be denied an understanding of the role that elections play, especially at the local level. Yet they argue that a “deliberative” form of political life, in which individuals and groups can participate in the decision-making process by voicing their opinions, is better suited to China than open party competition for power.

Management often refers to the practice of merit-based appointments, including holding examinations for positions; this system reflects the centuries-old Chinese belief that government should be formed from the most talented citizens. Chinese leaders do not welcome the unfettered freedom of speech, press or assembly that goes without saying in the West. They advocate the systematic expansion of these rights, but place emphasis on intergroup and social harmony, which they consider to be a common good.

Officials outside the top echelons of government (where public statements tend to be guided by the general script) have expressed differing opinions on the question of whether “managed democracy” will be the end point of China's current political evolution or just a stage on the way to a more or less standard model of liberal democracy. East Asia is replete with examples of different developments: the political dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan for several decades, prosperity combined with restrictions on press freedom in Singapore, an unfettered multi-party system in South Korea. Some believe Beijing could follow one of these paths or create its own.

At a meeting with a delegation from the Brookings Institution (which included me) in late 2006, Premier Wen Jiabao was asked what he and other Chinese leaders meant by “democracy,” what form of democracy was most likely to prevail in the country, and how long the process would take. . “When we talk about democracy,” Wen responded, “we usually refer to three basic things: the electoral process, the independence of the judiciary, and the system of checks and balances.”

Regarding the first, in his opinion, a gradual expansion of direct and indirect elections held in villages to cities, districts and even provinces is foreseen. However, he did not mention their further evolution. Regarding the high level of corruption in China's judicial system, Wen stressed the need for reform to ensure the "dignity, fairness and independence" of the courts. He also explained that public "supervision" (the Chinese term for effective oversight) is needed to limit official abuses. Wen called for the implementation of a system of checks and balances within the CCP itself and regular reporting of officials to the public. The media and China's nearly 200 million Internet users should also participate "appropriately" in monitoring government work, he said. Wen's final line: “We need to move towards democracy. We have a lot of problems, but we know which direction to go.”

FREEDOM OF CHOICE

Given the discrepancy between the democratic aspirations expressed by Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao and the skepticism with which the West perceives their words, there is a need to understand what is happening with the process of democratization in China. Chinese citizens do not have the right to elect national leaders, but for more than 10 years, peasants across the country have been electing the heads of village administrations. What is happening in the vast space between the peasant economy and Zhongnanhai, the complex in Beijing where the leadership of the CCP is located? Some questions can be answered by taking a closer look at the three core principles of Wen's definition of democracy: elections, judicial independence and public oversight.

The Constitution of the People's Republic of China provides for a combination of direct and indirect elections to elect state leaders. In practice, popular elections on an alternative basis are held only in 700 thousand villages of the country. This is remarkable since these villages are home to more than 700 million peasants, but when examining the details, a complex and at times contradictory picture emerges.

The original driving force behind holding elections in rural areas (for the first time in the early 1980s) was to produce competent local leaders who could boost the rural economy and implement national goals such as the one-child policy. With the abandonment of collectivization at the final stage of the Cultural Revolution, a power vacuum arose in the villages.

According to most observers, at first the elections were held with active support from the center and were generally objective. But in the early 1990s, authorities were reportedly shocked by figures showing that only 40 percent of elected village heads were CCP members. Beijing hastened to instruct local leaders to ensure that the Communist Party's "leadership role" is maintained.

Currently, the majority of heads of rural administrations are again members of the CPC, although the numbers vary significantly from region to region. More than 90% of heads of rural administrations in Guangdong, Hubei and Shandong provinces are Party members, while in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces the same figure is only 60–70%. And even these figures are higher than the actual percentage of heads of rural administrations elected while already members of the party. When non-party candidates are elected, the CCP almost always accepts them into its ranks in order to ensure its leadership, while at the same time allowing the peasants to see whoever they want in charge of their villages.

There are many problems associated with village elections, including nepotism, vote buying, and the election of incompetent or corrupt officials. Proponents of rural elections, however, see them as a testing ground for democracy. The most ardent opponents of elections at this level are, as a rule, officials of small cities and towns who are afraid of losing their posts if the central government decides to extend direct voting to the next level.

The most intriguing experiments with elections over the past decade have taken place in towns and cities. The authorities of these entities, burdened with numerous social programs and the payment of vital benefits for many citizens, often become the cause of anti-government sentiments and social discontent. Therefore, effective leadership at this level plays a key role in maintaining stability in society - a priority for Chinese leaders.

Elections on an alternative basis were held in a number of towns back in 1995–1996. The most daring experiment took place in 1998 in Buyun, a remote corner of Sichuan province. The Buyun administration organized direct elections on an alternative basis, in which about 6 thousand adult citizens who had the right to vote took part. These elections were widely covered in the Chinese media and came under fire from the official press for violating the country's Constitution.

The fact is that the Basic Law grants the right to elect the head of a town or village to local assemblies of people's representatives. And yet, to the surprise of many, the central government, having never approved the results of the Buyun elections, did not annul them, and the elected mayor, Tan Xiaoqiu, remained in office. In 2001, the CPC Central Committee reaffirmed that direct elections of township leaders are unconstitutional. In response, Buyun changed the election procedure to comply with the letter but not the spirit of the law: in the next election, citizens elected a candidate for the post of head of administration, then recommended by the local party committee and approved by the people's congress without the participation of opposition candidates.

Perhaps in part because of the legal problems Buyun faced, most towns and villages that experimented with elections began to focus on a less radical model - an "open recommendation and selection" system. In accordance with it, any adult resident can run for the post of head of a particular town, then the council of community leaders selects two candidates from among the participants, and the local assembly of people's representatives makes the final decision. This is not a direct vote, but a way to introduce elements of competition and transparency into the elections of local leaders. By 2001–2002, voting in almost 2 thousand villages and towns, representing 5% of the country's total, involved some element of competition.

The importance of elections in small towns and villages should not be overestimated. Such settlements are at the lowest administrative level of the Chinese state structure, and even supporters of this process admit that it is still in its infancy. However, if successful, such experiments provide managers with a degree of legitimacy based on the expression of will. Such elections bring a spirit of competition into the ranks of cadre party workers.

To a lesser extent, this applies to relations between party members and non-party members, rivalry between whom was previously out of the question. It is assumed that competition, albeit controlled, will improve the quality of governance. Some Chinese researchers also consider it noteworthy that some leaders of small localities, having a mandate of popular trust, behave more confidently and are not afraid to confront the secretaries of local party organizations. All of this poses a headache for the CCP, as one central government analyst noted, but it may result in the first seeds of a culture of checks and balances being sown.

Authorities in Beijing, in turn, are closely monitoring the progress of the experiment. In the spirit of change that spurred market reforms in the 1980s, the center encourages experimentation in local governance, albeit within certain limits. Thus, one senior official of the Central Party School (CPS) told me that in all small cities of the prosperous Jiangsu province, a pilot program involves holding elections on an alternative basis. According to him, as different methods begin to be tested in different parts of the country, the Center will study their results.

The experience with elections at the county level (a step above small cities and towns) is also worthy of attention. Since 2000, 11 counties in Hubei and Jiangsu provinces have used the "open recommendation and selection" system to elect candidates for the position of deputy county leader. This represents less than 0.5% of counties and cities of the corresponding level throughout the country, but any reform affecting the process of selecting leaders in counties, whose average population in the country is about 450 thousand people, would be an important factor.

Limited experiments have also been carried out in large cities. In 2003, 12 independent candidates ran for the Shenzhen District People's Congress, two of whom were elected. In Beijing, a group of independent candidates also ran for the people's congress of the Haidian region, where the country's leading universities are located. Almost no independent candidates make it into the people's congresses, but the number of such candidates is growing rapidly: from less than 100 throughout the country in 2003 to more than 40 thousand in 2006–2007. This data was provided by Li Fan, a former government official who is now one of the prominent supporters of electoral reform. He predicts that the number of independent candidates will reach hundreds of thousands in 2011–12, and the need for popular participation in political life will continue to grow as Chinese society further stratifies and opens up.

Elections within the CCP have also been seen by Chinese leaders in recent years as part of efforts to increase competitiveness. Some experts believe that the development of "intra-party democracy" is even more important for long-term political reform in China than experiments with local government. They believe that if the CCP goes for open discussions, internal party elections of leaders and decision-making by voting, then this will be a prerequisite for the establishment of democracy in the country as a whole.

Chairman Hu and Premier Wen regularly call for greater discussion, consultation, and collective decision-making within the CPC. Internal Party democracy was the main theme of Hu Jintao's report at the 17th Party Congress last fall. Shortly after the congress, Li Yuanchao, recently appointed head of the organizational department of the Central Committee, published an article in the People's Daily newspaper of 7 thousand characters, in which he develops Hu's thesis on further reform of the party. Notably, Hu does not have the authority of Mao, Deng or his predecessor Jiang Zemin and relies on the consensus of the 9-member Politburo Standing Committee. This indicates a movement in the opposite direction from excessive centralization of power at the national level.

One of the methods used by the CCP to introduce internal party democracy is to nominate several candidates for positions. 15% of candidates for delegates to the XVII Congress were rejected during voting in party organizations. According to official media reports, during the 2006/2007 party elections in 296 small cities and towns in 16 provinces, local party leaders were elected by direct vote of ordinary communists, which was part of a pilot project. In some regions, district party secretaries were also directly elected, one government analyst told me.

If intra-party democracy takes hold, some researchers predict a trend in which like-minded party workers will band together and form more distinct interest groups within the CCP. A top CPS official told our delegation from the Brookings Institution that "interest groups" are no longer taboo in the party, although the emergence of organized "factions" is not tolerated. However, some analysts have not ruled out the possibility that the CCP, like Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, will someday include official factions vying for the right to occupy high political positions and defending different positions.

In a major speech at the Central Party School last June, Hu Jintao called on CPC leaders to "improve the Party's internal democratic system and make full use of the Party's creative energy." Then, to demonstrate the kind of internal party democracy that Hu had called for, a non-binding preliminary vote was held among the several hundred senior party officials present at the meeting. Its purpose was to determine preferences regarding candidates for the future composition of the Politburo and its Standing Committee, that is, in other words, those who will rule China in the next five years.

Some Chinese analysts believe that Hu's speech at the CPS may have contained ideas that outlined the contours of a new political course. Hu said at the time: “We should resolutely uphold the emancipation of consciousness as an essential requirement of the Party's ideological line and our wonderful weapon as we face a variety of new situations and problems and constantly strive to move to a new stage of our activities.” Hu's demand to his colleagues to free themselves from the shackles of dogmatic thinking was taken as a call for greater pragmatism in thinking at the stage of China's political evolution.
More specifically, Hu Jintao pointed out to orthodox party members that Mao's definition of democracy was not the only possible one. At the same time, he hinted to the more reform-minded members of the Central Committee that simply copying Western models was not necessarily the right path.

LAW SUPREMACY

Of the three pillars of democracy identified by Wen Jiabao—elections, judicial independence, and public control—the second is in some ways the most remarkable. The question of whether the CPC serves the law or vice versa has always made judicial independence a sensitive topic.

The Chinese judicial system has made significant strides over the past three decades, but much remains to be done. In 1980, when the courts were just beginning to recover from the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, 800 thousand cases were accepted for consideration throughout China. By 2006, this figure had increased tenfold, clearly reflecting the changing role of the law in society. China has passed more than 250 new laws over the past 30 years, and the country is in the process of creating a clean slate of national laws.

Until the mid-1980s, most judicial officials and prosecutors came from a military background and had almost no systematic education, let alone legal education. Judicial independence was not even on the agenda; in any case, they were wary of such an idea. It is not surprising that in conditions when the main task of the courts was considered to be the implementation of the party line, excessive ideologization of judges and prosecutors was the order of the day. But since the mid-1980s, the state has been sending university graduates to positions as judges and prosecutors. By the late 1990s, an LL.M. degree became an unwritten condition for appointment as a senior judge.

Simultaneously with the improvement of the qualifications of this category of officials, changes occurred in the status of Chinese lawyers. Until the end of the 1980s, they were all government employees; there was no private practice. The first “cooperative law firms” appeared in 1988-1989, and today there are 12 thousand firms in the country, employing 118 thousand licensed lawyers. (By comparison, the United States, which is four times the population of China, has more than eight times the number of lawyers than China.) The growth of private practice has helped professionalize the entire system, in part precisely because the success of lawyers depends on the number of cases they win. (or at least lighter sentences). The prosecution still wins more than 90% of cases, but as defense attorneys have become more skilled and their arguments more sophisticated, prosecutors and judges have also had to upgrade their professional skills. Party bosses continue to interfere in the judicial process, and politically motivated cases are still decided by the central government. But most observers agree that as legal proceedings become more complex, the frequency and extent of such interference is declining.

China has adopted a number of legislative acts aimed at protecting citizens from the arbitrariness of the state. The Civil Servants Act (2005) sets high standards of conduct for officials. The Public Compensation Act 1994 provides for compensation for damage caused by public authorities. Perhaps the most significant event was the adoption in 1989 of the Law on Administrative Proceedings, which gave citizens the right to sue the state. In the first year of this law, about 13 thousand lawsuits were filed. Nowadays, more than 150 thousand lawsuits are filed against government agencies every year, and some of the successful applications to the court received positive coverage in the media.

Still, Chinese officials acknowledge that many legal challenges remain. One of the biggest obstacles to impartial decisions is the network of personal relationships known as guanxi (ties formed over years of mutual favors and assistance) that determines many verdicts. These connections can have a chilling effect on prosecutorial and judicial decisions. Judges tend to speak informally with parties to a case, which creates situations in which guanxi and corruption can directly influence the course of a case. Some experts have proposed increasing judges' salaries and implementing a number of other measures to create a judicial elite separate from other government officials in order to eradicate this typical vice in China.

The main problem is no longer the lack of a comprehensive body of law, but the gap between the content of laws and their implementation, especially at the local level and in politically charged cases. Rights guaranteed by the Criminal Procedure Act 1996 (a landmark in judicial reform), such as timely assistance of counsel and exculpatory evidence, are often not respected or simply ignored. A small but growing group of private lawyers, sometimes called "human rights advocates," take on high-profile cases involving unfair prosecutions, in part to draw attention to abuses caused by the justice system itself. Although these human rights lawyers rarely win cases and are sometimes prosecuted and even imprisoned, they believe that by constantly highlighting the discrepancy between the official desire for a fair judicial system and the actual state of affairs, they can, over time, close the gap.

Another serious obstacle is the continued enormous influence of local administration representatives on the courts. CCP committees are directly involved in the appointment of judges and prosecutors, and local governments make decisions regarding court salaries and budgets. This is partly reminiscent of the situation in the Chinese banking system a decade ago, when the influence of local officials on bank branches resulted in the emergence of a huge mass of politically motivated loans. A sharp rise in outstanding debt obligations forced Beijing authorities to spend $60 billion in central government funds to bail out banks. Then Premier Zhu Rongji carried out a reorganization, as a result of which final decisions on personnel and loans are made only at the central offices of financial institutions. Banking reform may provide a useful model for the overhaul that the judicial system needs.

According to an amendment to the Constitution in 1999, the People's Republic of China was officially declared “a country governed by law.” But the ultimate power lies in the hands of the CCP, not the government. More and more researchers are inclined to believe that the country needs a party whose members clearly understand that they are not above the law. One of the adherents of this point of view, Professor of the Central Party School Zhuo Zeyuan, last year presented his ideas to the entire Politburo of 24 people for two hours. One of the leaders of the CPS later told me that the relationship between the ruling party and the Constitution is very clearly defined: the CPC must obey the law. But, as in many other areas of life in China today, the problem lies precisely in the gap between theory and practice.

The CCP firmly holds the levers of control over the courts and, if necessary, manipulates them. In addition, the party has a separate, parallel system of measures applied to party members who have committed offenses; these measures include detention and interrogation and are sometimes more severe than the penalties provided for in the normal legal system. Recently, there have been signs in party circles of an understanding that their actions need to be more consistent with legal norms. New York University School of Law professor Jerome Cohen, one of the West's leading experts on the Chinese legal system, noted that local party organizations in at least 20 provinces have created a disciplinary system that provides certain guarantees for CCP members: notification of alleged misconduct, the ability to defend yourself against charges (including the right to call witnesses in your defense), a formal statement of the reasons for the final decision, and the opportunity to appeal. Some of these rights have long been enshrined in the CPC Charter, but have never been truly applied.

Chinese leaders seem to recognize that China 2008 is too complex to be governed solely by edicts from Beijing, and that laws must be enforced through a proper legal system that enjoys public trust. Lack of trust in the courts is one of the reasons why people take to the streets (according to official statistics, tens of thousands of public protests are held every year). It is not surprising that leaders such as Premier Wen are demanding that the party and state stop interfering in routine judicial procedures. But the leadership still insists on maintaining control over cases that affect public interests, as well as over the judicial system at the macro level. The question is whether the CCP will be able to build a fair and independent judiciary while maintaining top-down control.

PUBLIC CONTROL

There is no shortage of institutions in the Chinese system whose task is to prevent official dishonesty. The oldest of these is the traditional petition system, dating back to imperial times, which allows citizens to take complaints directly to higher authorities. Each metropolitan ministry has a department that deals with such petitions. But going directly to the authorities is considered a last resort, and such cases are rarely resolved satisfactorily: the process is opaque and dependent on the goodwill of anonymous officials reviewing petitions.

Another control body is the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, which is headed by a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and consists of 8 deputies and 120 senior members. The commission is engaged in the fight against corruption and other violations by party members. Parallel bodies at the government level are the Ministry of Supervision and the Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, which hold government officials accountable for wrongdoing. One of the functions of the official Xinhua News Agency is to collect information on corruption cases throughout the country and prepare internal reports for the central leadership.

Despite such a variety of mechanisms to combat corruption, corruption remains a serious problem in official bodies, and leaders never tire of mentioning moral decay as one of the main issues that the party must deal with. As the economy has boomed over the past two decades, so have the opportunities for bribery. The case of Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of the State Food and Drug Administration, has made headlines throughout the country. He was executed last July for accepting bribes from pharmaceutical companies. Cases like these reinforce the view that society is decaying.

According to the CPC, in 2006, more than 97 thousand civil servants were subject to disciplinary sanctions, of which 80% were found guilty of neglect of official duties, accepting bribes or violating financial regulations. “The official [control] system has generally failed,” one government analyst told me. At lower levels, the main structural flaw of the control system mirrors that of the judicial system: the heads of disciplinary commissions are appointed by local leaders, who, one might assume, tend to appoint relatives, friends, protégés or colleagues to these positions. Only in 2006 did the rule come into force according to which the heads of commissions at the provincial level are appointed by the central government.

Chairman Hu and Premier Wen face a very important dilemma. They understand that eradicating corruption, which breeds cynicism among citizens about the one-party system, must be the main goal of their government. But they must act while maintaining the loyalty of local officials through whom the CCP rules the country. To strengthen formal control mechanisms, the government is increasingly turning to alternative channels. Surveys are being conducted in selected areas of Beijing to determine how satisfied citizens are with government agencies. The Beijing City Planning Commission, which is handling redevelopment projects, has hired a consulting firm that can help take public input into account.

Another promising trend is the rapid commercialization of the Chinese press. Thanks to state ownership of outlets and censorship, the government remains in complete control of the media. There are still boundaries that journalists cannot cross. But changes are also happening. In an effort to attract readers and advertisers, independent publications hunt for stories that arouse keen interest among the population. They found, like similar publications in the West, that investigative journalism is in demand.

A well-received 2002 analytical article by an experienced reporter for the Chinese Economic Times newspaper provided a detailed account of Beijing's taxi licensing system. As a result of the alleged collusion between the company's owners and the government regulatory agency, the drivers were forced to work extremely stressful hours and low wages. The newspaper with this material was immediately sold out.

The Propaganda Department of the Central Committee responded by prohibiting other publications from responding to this publication. The city transportation department did not allow drivers to give it a public reading. Some taxi drivers quoted in the article received death threats, and the author was forced to hire bodyguards for three months. However, public outrage began to grow when the story hit the Internet. Eight days after the article was published, Wen Jiabao, then deputy premier of the State Council, issued an official statement in support of taxi drivers and ordered the preparation of a report on the situation for then-premier Zhu Rongji.

The attention of many Chinese was attracted by an experiment - the government's decision to allow foreign journalists from January 2007 until the end of the 2008 Beijing Olympics to travel freely throughout the country (with the exception of Tibet) and freely collect material for reporting. The editor of one Chinese newspaper told me: “Of course, this is a kind of criterion - how the foreign press will use this new right. Unless something extraordinary happens, it is difficult to see how the government will be able to reintroduce the old system after the Olympics are over.” Unsurprisingly, this has already had its fair share of difficulties: in July, several foreign journalists covering an anti-government demonstration organized by an international human rights group were detained for several hours. However, foreign correspondents in Beijing report that, overall, since the announcement of the new policy (regarding journalists), restrictions on their movements and activities have been noticeably eased.

In recent years, the Internet and cell phones have competed with traditional media as channels through which citizens express their outrage. From time to time this forced the authorities to act.

One of the sensational cases is the story of a “blocked house” in the fast-growing city of Chongqing in Central China. For three years, a middle-class couple stubbornly refused to sell their home to a developer who, with the consent of the municipal authorities, planned to demolish the entire neighborhood and turn it into a shopping center. The neighbors have long since moved out. The company tried to intimidate the couple by digging a pit as deep as a three-story house around their lonely home, but such tactics hit the company itself hard.

Photos of the house looming over the "chasm" were posted online and sparked outrage across the country. Over the course of several weeks, tens of thousands of messages were sent slamming city officials for allowing this situation to happen. Correspondents pitched tents near the “blocked” house, even official newspapers sided with the couple. In the end, they agreed to move to a new house and received compensation in the amount of more than 110 thousand dollars. The daily newspaper Xin Jing Bao (Beijing News), which has a wide readership, published a commentary that would have been unimaginable in a Chinese newspaper a dozen years ago: “This story inspires the Chinese public in this era of civil rights... Coverage of this event in the media was rational and constructive, which inspires citizens to protect their rights in the future in accordance with the law.”

In another example of the union of new technologies and citizens: last May, outraged residents of the city of Xiamen, on the southern coast of China, began to fight against the city authorities' intention to build a large chemical plant on the outskirts of the city. Cell phones have become the public's weapon. Within a few days, hundreds of thousands of messages with texts against the construction of the plant spread like a virus throughout the country. The city of Xiamen, which had previously ignored popular protests, suddenly announced that work would be suspended until a study of the possible environmental impacts of the construction of the project was completed. Dissatisfied with this half-hearted measure, the townspeople again turned to cellular communications and organized a march with the participation of about 7 thousand people who demanded a final cessation of construction. Although local party newspapers condemned the action as illegal, the marchers were allowed to take to the streets unhindered and stage one of the largest peaceful demonstrations in China in recent years.

DEMOCRACY IN CHINA

Progress on elections, judicial independence and oversight is part of the transformation of Chinese society and the expansion of personal freedoms that has accompanied the country's breakneck economic reforms and development over the past three decades. The government still intervenes in many areas, but much less than before.

Over the past 20 years, several hundred million Chinese have moved from villages to cities - the largest surge of urbanization in history. Until the mid-1990s, the government strictly controlled internal migration. Over the next two decades, authorities predict that 300 million more peasants will move to cities, which will help reduce the income gap between urban and rural residents. In the past, the state assigned each city dweller a place of work and place of residence. Now, Chinese living in cities have the right to go abroad to study, work or have a good time. Ten years ago, a Chinese citizen had to get permission from his boss, the party secretary at his place of work and the local police station before applying for a passport. The procedure could last six months and end in refusal. Now everything takes less than a week, and the issuance of a passport is almost automatically guaranteed, just like in the USA.

Less than two decades ago, foreigners in Beijing were required to live in designated areas - hotels or neighborhoods guarded by military police. Nowadays, foreigners live side by side with the Chinese. When local residents are asked about the democratization of society, they mention these changes as often as elections or judicial reform. They may be substituting the concept of freedom for democracy, but it would be unfair to discount the expansion of their personal freedoms as something of secondary importance.

In a private conversation, a leading party official enthusiastically admitted to me that ten years ago it would have been unthinkable for a person in his position to openly discuss the problems of democracy with an American. Now, according to him, what is being discussed in China is not the feasibility of introducing democracy itself, but when and how this will happen. In his opinion, one of the tasks that the party must immediately solve is to reform the National People's Congress so that it does not become a “veterans' house” for former functionaries, but brings together competent professionals, ultimately becoming a genuine legislative body. The government should also ensure that direct elections are held at the provincial level - of course, not Western-style multi-party elections, but at least competitive ones that provide a real alternative, my interlocutor believes.

The president of one of China's largest corporations, also a candidate member of the CPC Central Committee, told me that improving corporate governance in companies like his own, which are listed on foreign stock exchanges (and therefore adhere to international norms), is one example of the expansion of "democratic skills." Although he said corporate governance was still being established, the general trend among state-owned enterprises, especially those listed abroad, was greater transparency, stronger and more independent boards and governance by mutually agreed rules. Over time, operating in such an environment will likely lead to a more democratic mindset among China's business elite, as well as the senior officials who sit on the boards of state-owned enterprises.

Over the past century, no one has thought more about the prospects for democracy in their country, or about its unattainability, than the Chinese themselves. Time and time again they have seen the tides of democratic aspirations rise and then recede, and sometimes see those aspirations crushed. In 1898, Empress Dowager Cixi cracked down on the “Hundred Days of Reform,” which was initiated by advisors to the Guangxu Emperor. The atmosphere of optimism surrounding Sun Yat-sen's inauguration as provisional president of the Republic of China on January 1, 1912 was soon dispelled by military ruler Yuan Shikai, who attempted to found a new imperial dynasty in 1915. In the 1930s, shortly before the outbreak of war with Japan, which attacked China, and then internecine wars, democratic forms of government in the country were defended by progressive figures of both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. The proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949 heralded the advent of an era of self-determination, prosperity and democracy. But hopes were dashed by Mao's brutal political campaigns, which culminated in the Cultural Revolution. The 1980s, leading up to the Tiananmen Square tragedy, were a period of intense political ferment, with democracy at the center of debate in government, think tanks, universities and intellectuals.

Compared to these periods, the tone of current Chinese leaders' statements about democracy may seem cautious. Critics say the government's lack of genuine commitment to political reform is taking its toll. Optimists believe that gradual reforms will lead to longer-term liberalization compared to the experience of the past, when, despite all the euphoria, any undertakings ended in failure. An older statesman, personally acquainted with all the top leaders of China since Mao, assured me that democracy has always been the “common aspiration” of the Chinese people. The Chinese people are determined to avoid mistakes, he said, but the West must be patient. “Please let the Chinese experiment,” he said. “Give us the opportunity to try.”

Where these experiments will lead is an open question. There is a wide range of opinions among Chinese about how long it will take for democracy to take root, but they are unanimous on some points. One official put it this way: “Nobody says 5 years. Some people think 10–15. Some people think from 30 to 35 years. But it doesn’t occur to anyone to name the number 60.” There are also those who predict that the process of democratization will stretch out for at least two more generations in the leadership of the CCP - according to this scenario, democracy will arrive somewhere around 2022.

In 2004, a survey was conducted among nearly 700 local leaders who participated in a provincial professional development program. More than 60% of respondents said they were dissatisfied with the state of democracy, and 63% identified political reforms as too slow. On the other hand, 59% of respondents believe that economic development should be given higher priority than democracy. It is also significant that 67% of local leaders supported direct elections of heads of rural administrations, and 41% supported elections of heads of districts. At the same time, 13% were in favor of the election of provincial governors and only 9% were in favor of the election of the chairman of the PRC.

In China, people sometimes like to mention that it took the United States almost two centuries to establish universal suffrage. The first few presidents in America were elected in most states only by white men who owned land and made up no more than 10% of the adult population. Women had to wait until the 20th century to be granted suffrage, and blacks until the 1960s. “This is a problem,” said a Beijing newspaper editor tartly, “about which we Chinese may be less patient than you Americans.”

Last spring, an article with the provocative title “Democracy is a Good Thing” caused a minor sensation in China. Yu Keping, the author of the article, which was published in a magazine closely associated with the CCP, is the director of a think tank working directly for the CPC Central Committee. Yu, who cannot be said to be oblivious to the shortcomings of democracy (it “allows smooth-talking political swindlers to mislead the people”), openly and unequivocally approves of it: “Of all the political systems that have been invented and existed in practice, democracy has the least all the shortcomings. Democracy is, in a sense, the best political system for humanity."

Yu Keping does not predict an easy path to democracy for China. “In a democratic government,” he notes, “leaders must be elected by citizens and win the support of the majority of the people; their powers will be limited to citizens, they will not be able to do whatever they want; they must look people in the eye and negotiate. But it is precisely these two points that make many of them hostile to democracy. Therefore, democracy in practice does not function on its own; it requires that the people and statesmen representing the interests of the people contribute to its development and implement it.”

It is clear that some people at the center of the Chinese system are actively thinking about these fundamental issues. The question is whether and how these ideas will be implemented. In recent years, China has been on the verge of a transition from the old system, based on the authority and opinion of one or several individuals ruling the country, to a state that is governed by generally accepted and binding rules. Institutionalization of power is a common principle in all countries that have successfully transitioned to democracy. China's experiments with local elections, judicial reform and greater public scrutiny are all part of the shift to a more rules-based system. The same goal is pursued in the ways in which Chinese society continues to open up and diversify, fostering the creation of a civil society.

The progress of institutionalization over the next few years may largely depend on China's defining political evolution toward leadership change. The way a country handles the transfer of power at the top sends a very clear signal to all lower levels of government. In this regard, China has already gone part of the way. Becoming Mao Zedong's successor meant finding oneself in the most dangerous position imaginable. Deng Xiaoping had his own problems in appointing a reliable successor; he remained the most powerful man in China for almost a decade after resigning from all official posts in 1989. The first peaceful transfer of power in modern Chinese history was carried out by his successor Jiang Zemin, who handed over his powers to Hu Jintao. Jiang remains a powerful figure behind the scenes, but no one would compare him to Deng.

One senior figure shared with me the idea that the issue of transfer of power can no longer be effectively dealt with ad hoc, as it was in the past. Both China and the world have changed a lot; the process of selecting the country's leaders must be institutionalized. The problem, he explained, is that a new acceptable process for transferring power has yet to be worked out, and until then it would be unwise to abandon the old system. China is in an uncertain state of transition. And yet, my interlocutor expressed the hope that by the time of the 3rd Plenum of the 17th CPC Central Committee (2009), progress will become noticeable. Some party members even proposed that Hu's successor as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee should be determined by a vote of the entire Central Committee when Hu Jintao steps down in 2012. The manner in which Hu Jintao's successor is chosen will be an unmistakable indicator of what kind of political future the current generation of Chinese leaders envisions. This will show whether they believe, as Sun Yat-sen did a century ago, that democracy is the best path to the prosperity, independence and freedom that the Chinese people have struggled and sacrificed so long to achieve.