The US and China are said to practise very different systems, but only if the details are excluded.
THE world’s two biggest economies exercised the selection of their next leaders just two days apart.
The
international media made the usual observation that here were two
systems working in ways that could not be more different. That is valid
only up to a point, beyond which it only obscures the realities of the
US and Chinese systems.
Externally, US democracy is said to offer
citizens a choice of government every four years. If an incumbent fails
to deliver as promised, voters can vote him out the next time.
China’s
one-party system undertakes no regular elections for the public. Every
10 years, the Communist Party meets at a National Congress to identify
the country’s next president and prime minister.
The common
implication is that while the US system offers freedom of choice,
China’s does not. These contrasting stereotypes become fuzzy in
practice, however.
The US system sets two presidential terms of
four years each as the limit for any individual. If an incumbent opts
for re-election, his party is unlikely to entertain any challenger from
the party’s ranks.
Thus the party’s candidate is predetermined,
beyond the control of even party members. For the other party, some
jostling among prospective candidates precedes the eventual candidate,
over which ordinary party members may have no choice.
For both
parties, money and party machinery (monetised infrastructure) are
prerequisites. Any candidate, whether from one of the two main parties
or any other, can have no hope of seriously running for the presidency
without the vast financial backing required.
That is why in the
US and many other Western democratic systems, the choice voters have is
only one out of two parties. Third, fourth, fifth and other parties have
no real chance, regardless of the value of their policies or the
virtues of their candidates.
The supposedly free mainstream news
media is also an accessory to this limitation. They give alternative
parties scant print space or air time, on the premise that they have
little clout, which ensures that they continue to have little clout.
The
result is that when either the Republican or the Democratic Party wins
the presidency, they differ little in the flesh. With hardly any
alternative ideas penetrating this political establishment, Republicans
and Democrats tend to become more conservative.
As far-right
neo-conservatives entered the fray in the 2000 election, both parties
moved further to the right. Critics describe the two main parties as
merely two wings of the same party, or as being two right wings of the
Republican Party.
The US presidency is also the choice of the
system rather than of the people. The eventual winner is “elected” by
the electoral vote of the Electoral College, rather than the popular
vote of ordinary voters.
There are currently only 538 members of
the Electoral College who decide on the next president and
vice-president out of a choice of two teams. The candidacy that can
secure 270 votes wins the White House.
In China, 2,270 delegates
of the Communist Party meet at the National Congress every five years to
elect the party’s highest decision-making body, the Central Committee
(CC). Some 350 members of the CC then decide on the party’s General
Secretary and members of the Politburo, Standing Committee and Central
Military Commission.
The CC is said to experience high turnovers
at election time. In each of the past half-dozen national congresses,
more than 60% of committee members have been replaced.
There has
also been no shortage of candidates, particularly for this year’s 18th
National Congress. It was the first time that nominees for the 2,270
party delegates had been assessed, with candidates continuing to
outnumber the available slots.
At this latest National Congress,
both a new CC and a new Central Commission for Discipline Inspection
were elected. The Communist Party’s Constitution is also being amended,
with the main themes being intra-party democracy and fighting
corruption.
The governing party’s Standing Committee has also
sought the views of other political parties in China on the draft report
for the 18th National Congress. President Hu Jintao, as party General
Secretary, pledged to strengthen cooperation with the other parties.
Beijing
has thus become a magnet for journalists during the week more than for
previous National Congresses. More than 1,000 international journalists
gained accreditation, with another 400 from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.
If
more of Beijing’s proceedings were in English, they would enjoy wider
global coverage. That day may soon come as China’s prospect grows.
In
1997, China granted the Carter Center in the US the role of observing
village-level elections around the country. The next level of
governance, the provincial level, has also experimented with elections
for the general public, with only the national level still to do so.
Since
2002, the Carter Center has also played a significant part in voter
education in China, on issues like improved governance and political
reform. In both rural and urban areas, the Carter Center works with
China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs and with NGOs
.
Meanwhile during
the week’s 18th National Congress in Beijing, a multitude of issues
surfaced for the government to consider. Among these are challenges from
growing income disparities, corruption, inadequate market access for
local businesses, environmental degradation and moral decay from public
indifference to private suffering.
As elsewhere, the
responsibility of government is to ensure fulfilment of public welfare
without neglecting private business needs. Whereas in the US critics of
the government accuse Washington of adopting socialist policies, critics
of Beijing accuse the government of abandoning them.
The world’s
two largest economies are often compared to see how different they are,
while neglecting how much they are similar and how exactly they
actually differ. Economically they have become so interdependent within a
single global system as to become mutually complementary.
By
implication, they are also not as different politically as is so often
presumed. While classical ideologists may persist, the reality is that
the political business of government has largely become managing
national economies competently in a single globalised world.
Kenichi
Ohmae is wrong; countries are in no danger of being replaced by
corporations in the present or the foreseeable future, no matter how
much some corporate budgets dwarf some national incomes. Rather,
countries will remain unitary entities, albeit essentially as political
economies increasingly governed by national economic needs and
supranational economic parameters.
A symptom of this is how
economic ideologies have replaced political ideologies between the
world’s leading major powers. The Washington Consensus of supposedly
antagonistic public and private sectors is under serious challenge by
the Beijing Consensus of a harmonious complementary relationship between
state and industry.
The latter model in Asia originated in
Japan, and was soon adopted by the Newly Industrialising Economies
(NIEs) of Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore. Now China is the
main player of this game, with its size of play earning it the “Beijing
Consensus” as the name of the game.
But some of it had already
been seen before in Europe, particularly Germany. It had also been
evident in the US itself, in a different time and under a different
name.
All of which serves to confirm the unitary nature of the
global economy, with time, circumstance and level of development being
the real differentials.
BEHIND THE HEADLINES By BUNN NAGARA
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