China's One Party System Analysis

• Zhiting Liu

One-party system and multi-party system, how about China?

As people know, most of the countries in the world they implement the multi-party system, like in U.S.A, UK and Germany. However, some of the countries use the one-party system to manage the government, like in China, North Korea and Cuba. So, what’s the different with one-party system and multi-party system and which one is the best one in the world? There are many question of the people, and people always argument with it. In my opinion, the United States is a dictatorship, but was a “clever dictatorship”, China have its own feature model of one-party system and people need for an effective monitoring system.

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So, what is the one-party system? And what is the multi-party system? One-party system is a type of state in which a single political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties are either outlawed or allowed to take only a limited and controlled participation in elections (Wiki, 2014). And a multi-party system is a system in which multiple political parties have the capacity to gain control of government offices, separately or in coalition (Wiki, 2012). When people talk the party system, they always talk the one-party system is dictatorship and multi-party system is democratic. In fact, multi-party system can have authoritarian and one-party system also can have democracy. And if talks about the dictatorship and democratic, we need to explain it first.

The most primitive dictatorship is in the ancient China of Qin dynasty, the emperor’s said “Shi Wu Ju Xi Jie Jue Yu Shang”(Sima Qian, shih chi), these Chinese characters mean all the events need decided by the emperor. However as history goes, the connotation of dictatorship was shifted, in nowadays it is: A few people with their own will to governing the behavior of most people. Indeed, the countries such as the United States also have this. This will be talked about later. And the democracy, it is divided into great democracy and small democracy, great democracy is a kind of denial of governmental authority, the people were completely manage the country. In fact, the “Chinese Cultural Revolution” is an extreme great democracy. And the cost of great democracy is Chaos. Small democracy is a behavior which part of the people in a small range to management themselves. Small democracy is scientific and feasible, because the wisdom of ordinary people is limited, for their side of things, the management is reasonable and capable, but for high-level national policy it could not, even if they are given a great democracy with limited management power, they can easily be swayed by some political forces, thus becoming a puppet dictatorship under the guise of democracy.

At first, how multi-party dictatorship. For example, in the United States, the United States is a two-party country. The two parties in the political philosophy of the left (Democrat) and the right (Republicans), but the two parties are deeply influenced by American consortium. The United States is the kingdom of “money first”, money can control the politic and it is legitimate. When in every general election, the major consortia will selected a good team, and be the financial assistant of their “contestants”, they establishment of various campaign funds, go canvassing the people and make momentum to get votes. There’s only one US president is not receiving any money support and got success in the history of the United States presidential election, that is Lincoln. When the “contestants” successful campaign to become US president candidate, he is bound to reciprocate the consortium which support him. Certainly, his returns are not increased tax and other fees then repay to them, but the bias of the policy. For example, in some way George W. Bush launched the Iraq war was a feedback to the US arms group. This is the issue of administrative aspects.

In the legislation part, although the Member of Parliament in the United States was elected by the popular vote, but they don’t have an effective monitoring mechanism. That’s mean when a person becomes member, before end of the term, he is unfettered, so he get bribe from a big consortia is a very easy thing to do. If a bill is being reviewed but is conflict of interest, then there is no guarantee of stakeholders who would think some distorted ideas. This is a test of Members, but in this time, Members are not subject to the supervision and restriction by other agencies, so he could reasonably have been legally inclined to support or deny a bill, then get the benefits from one of the stakeholders. As long as a good “price” then there is no need to tangle up for re-election. For this hidden dictatorship, how many people can perceive it?

In fact, as long as the control of the executive power (President) and legislative (Congress) it will be able to completely control the politics of a country, and in a country where money is worshipped, in fact, the money is in charge of everything. However, the spokesperson of money is consortiums and capitalists. In essence, the United States is a dictatorship, but a “clever dictatorship.” The American two-party system, in essence, is representing supported their capitalist camp, but nothing on the concept of fine-tuning, the Republican Party is absolutely conservative, and it always tend to be protect by big capitalists. The Democratic Party is relatively aggressive, they tend to give benefit to the general public. But what is for their “shareholders” to speak? Such as the fail policy like “Obama’s health Insurance“, who can give financial support to this.

Though my primary example is America, I want to briefly mention that these principles can also be observed in European political parties. The European political parties actually almost as same as America, if the West countries is absolutely democratic politics, then why do they not allow the ruling is a Communist Party candidate? Almost every Western country has the presence of the Communist Party, but all of them receive severe pressure. From this point of, the Western democracy is nothing but a hypocritical rule tool.

Then let’s see the strengths and weaknesses of one-party system. The first advantage of one-party system is its strong ability to mobilize. It means “concentrating power,” then we cannot ignore the economic miracles of the Soviet Union and the economic miracles which was being staged in China, both of them are faster than the capitalist countries when they development in the capital accumulation stage. The development results in Western countries are cost two or three decades. But in the Soviet Union and China, both of them were only need to take two or three “five-year plan.” (Wiki, 2014) One-party state, especially the Communist Party of the State, its national mobilization capability is very powerful, it will be better able to respond to some of the major events, such as war, from the Soviet Union to North Korea, the countries which are really powerful.

The disadvantage of the one-party is the abuse of its strong mobilize ability. Since the individual level issues, the direction of the Communist Party of mobilization is not necessarily correct, such as the year of the Soviet Union, the government mobilize the national forces to engage in an arms race, and finally it was lead to economic stagnation and coup. And now, in the North Korea, the government regardless of people’s life, the country is to engage in “military-first” policy. And now Chinese official is too much lay emphasis on speed of economic development and neglects other aspects of construction and so on, this is an abuse of mobilization capacity, which is the foreign people who always talks the dictatorship of one-party system.

Before I discuss the advantages of China’s current one-party system and the advantage of multi-party system. At first we need to have a clear concept of the “one party system” and “China’s current one-party system,” they are not a same thing. Although it is undeniable that China’s current one-party system has many problems, but cannot be generalized. One-party system could have a variety of modes, for example, one-party system in A-mode, B-mode single-party system, C mode one party system, etc. If now China is use an A-model party system, and it’s not very suitable, it’s not mean that the party system B mode is not good either. As another example, a foreigner practicing the Chinese Kungfu, and he do the terrible job, but you cannot deduce the Chinese Kungfu is very bad in itself, this is the truth. Therefore, if the China’s current one-party system are different with the normally one-party system or have some problems, that you can understand this is a new model of one-party management which are more suitable with China’s policy and social. And China still need time to modified the issue and make it completely.

In the March 3^rd, 2010, there was a news posted in the Singapore’s newspaper, the tittle is: “Comparative Politics: Why China’s one-party system is superior to the Western multiparty system.” (Newspaper, 2010) In this whole article, the author gives six advantages of China’s current one-party system. One of the advantages of China’s one-party system is that the country can develop a national long-term development plan and maintain the stability of the policy, it didn’t effect by different political party which have the different positon. The first part is the advantage of one-party system, it’s the powerful ability of mobilize, needless to say anymore.

The second advantage of China’s one-party system is the high efficiency. For the challenges and opportunities China can make timely and effective response, especially in response to sudden disaster events. The word “High efficiency” is used inappropriately. In fact, it’s still talks about the national mobilization, with the ability of Western countries, they are difficult to achieve effectively mobilize from the whole society, it is the disadvantaged of their ability to mobilize. But with the “high efficiency” is not an appropriate word to sum up the truth, because the Western countries they are advanced in science or technology and in the field of efficiency significantly they are higher than China. In the other side Science and Technology is the driving force of its wealth creation.

The third advantage of China’s one-party, is in this particular period of social transition, the government can effectively curb the spread of corruption. For the part three, it is obviously nonsense, because under the current one-party system which corruption is impossible to get effective control. In the Chinese one-party system it was absence of have an effective monitoring mechanism. Is the government suppress the corruption, we cannot see it, because we can only get the news which is the government want us to know. But if China can develop an effective monitoring mechanism in the future, then the one-party system can really more effective than a multiparty system to curb corruption. Because when that system have the power to protect the people, ordinary people can exert a greater influence on personnel appointment and dismissal, while the people’s passion of bottom level for fighting corruption is not self-evident, therefore, anti-corruption efforts can be more efficient operation in support of its system. In contrast, multi-party system, if party A corruption, they change to Party B, then Party B and back again corrupt party A, and so forth, the result is still the same. Taiwan does not is a vivid example? DPP ousted the KMT and they do the same thing (Truth in Taiwan, 2010). Therefore, the key to solve the eradication of corruption is not one-party or multi-party system, but the people become an effective monitoring mechanism.

China’s fourth one-party Advantage is the Chinese government it is a more accountable government. If it is a one-party ruling, it must take full responsibility for all the acts. And for the multi-party ruling, actually they always have a new beginning after the election, to know the stand or fall of a political party, just look the election. For normally people, they are not choose the best, just drive away the worst. They always only hold “this is not the best, but have no choice” attitude to towards the new ruling party. As for the one-party system, although normally people do not have the opportunity to choose another, but they can reasonably and lawfully to oversight and reform the government. So, the multi-party system of government needs to take more responsibility, and to take full responsibility for their words and deeds, so that people do not have elections in the game again and again to choose more responsible government

China’s one-party advantage fifth is that in personnel training and selection mechanisms the government can avoid the waste of talent. This is completely nonsense, because the one-party system China has screened talent people earlier and only those talent who support their can get a good development, the other people who was nonsupport government not only give up them, but also given pressure, that’s the causing many of peoples go abroad and live overseas. In that moment, the multi-party system countries develop a training system capable of supporting the all intellectuals, and there’s no political part to affect them to study and get development.

The Sixth advantage of China’s one-party system is that it can truly representative referendum. For this section and the status quo it was seem to have a very big contrast. Because the people who live in one-party system countries they always get unfair threat, but in the multi-party system countries people were feel freedom. Overall, according to the opinion of Max, a mature party system is better than a multi-party system, but nowadays the one-party system is not mature so there is not happened.

Whether a one-party system or a multi-party system, all need people to supervise, we need a completely monitoring mechanism. The monitoring mechanism of Multi-party is election system, but it is too irresponsible, it only show a complete new name after the election, there are no major aspects of change, and it only mend small ways to cope the voter’s trouble. And the monitoring mechanism of China’s one-party have not been established. As long as China can develop an effective monitoring mechanism of the one-party system, like allow the normal people to participate in the personnel appointment and removal, it is more effective and more democratic than the way of voters evaluate.

Reference page

“One-party System.”Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Nov. 2014. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.

“Multi-party System.”Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Nov. 2014. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.

“Shi Wu Ju Xi Jie Jue Yu Shang” Sima Qian. Shih Chi, 101-104 BC.

“Five year plan” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Nov. 2014. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.

“Comparative Politics: Why China’s one-party system is superior to the Western multiparty system.” Song Luzheng. Singapore united news, March 3^rd, 2010. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.

“KMT vs DPP.” Truth in Taiwan. Truth in Taiwan, 21 May 2010. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.