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Chinese Democracy

It seems very odd how China made such a great economic growth, while remaining its
system of communism. Most of the communist countries failed to control their system and have
collapsed on its own; China, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, North Korea being the only countries with MarxistLeninist communism system. Even among these countries are not making notable growth, due to their
unstable economic state. China, on the other hand, has made an unordinary economic growth, with
the second highest GDP in the whole world. While it seems strange on the outside, Chinas exceptional
economic growth is understandable considering Chinese economic system; a strange mixture of
communism and capitalism. Looking at Chinas current status and past history, many people believe
China will inevitably become democratic. Whether true or not, if that day comes, one thing is for sure;
it will be nothing like any other democracy in the world.
In order to picture how democratic China will look like, we can compare with other already
democratic countries. When we discuss democracy one country that cannot be undiscussed is United
States; one of the founders of modern democracy. Many countries imitated United States democracy
with slight modification. However, one crucial difference between US and China is their history itself.
Unlike other countries, United States started with absolutely nothing; people of United States built
their own country. Thus United States is based on their own democracy and their own capitalism. On
the other hand, China started from anti-democracy and anti-capitalism. Even if China becomes
democratic, whether China will accept capitalism or not is still in question.
The two basic needs of democratic country are: 1) The country must respect its citizens
rights, and 2) A system must be created in order to prevent tyranny. In Chinas case none of these two
needs are met. So when we discuss democratic China we are saying that first, China has economic
power to support their citizens, and second there must be an opposing party in the country. Currently
only single party rules over China, and their power is stronger than that of the constitution. So citizens
being able to vote for their own leader is natural right of democratic China. Since China is going to
change from tyranny to democracy, its most likely that they will not give up on their power. Even if
China becomes democratic, it is very likely that while China allows its citizens to vote, any form of
dictatorship will still remain. One possible situation of this is creating an oppositional party with weak
power. This is actually happening in current status of China, but now the oppositional party has no
right and no power at all. The rights of oppositional party will be created, but it still will be weaker than
that of the ruling party.
In the economic point of view, China will adapt capitalism. That is what they are already doing
now, and probably what they will be doing in the future. But since full capitalism of economy is
dangerous for sustaining their power, they will still apply some elements of communism. Since
capitalism is not the needs of democratic country, mixture of communism and capitalism is possible in
future China. In the capitalism part, the market economy will be more active than now. The market
price will be dependent on customers, and the quality of Chinese products, which is one clear
disadvantage of China, will be enhanced naturally. In the communism part, the governments power to
control the market price will still remain. But this power of government exists in todays democratic
countries, too. No country in the world has perfect capitalism. Governments control over the market is
seen anywhere in capitalist countries, even including US. But in Chinas case, the power is likely to be
stronger than other democratic countries.
The idea that communism is the opposite of democracy is false. Instead, the opposite of
communism is capitalism. So thinking that China has to give up on communism in order to become
democratic is also wrong. To summarize the future image of democratic China, a powerful government

that can control over the market will still exist, while the basic market system itself is based on
capitalism. And the dictatorship of China will still remain, but hidden under the name of democracy,
with existence of weak oppositional party. Of course, this is not very democratic. However, China has
the power to manipulate democracy to match with their taste, and they probably will. Whether truly
democratic or not one thing is for certain; the change of Chinese system will result in a huge impact to
the whole world. We will still have to wait few more decades or so for such a big change to happen.

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