The Unique Electoral System in China—We Don’t Want It.

In China, we have a really special election system. It’s different from all the other countries and China has already used it for a long time.

According to the article about China’s Election System from an official website of China, www.china.org.cn, all citizens of the People’s Republic of China have the right to vote and stand for election after they have reached 18 years old, regardless of their ethnic background, sex, religious belief, and so on. People who have been deprived of their political rights, according to law, do not have the right to vote and stand for election. One voter has only one vote in each election.

From the website named “The National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China”, there are five central and local levels of people’s congresses in China. From the highest level to the lowest level, they are:

1. The National People’s Congress
2. The people’s congresses of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government
3. The people’s congresses of cities divided into districts, and autonomous prefectures
4. The people’s congresses of cities not divided into districts, municipal districts, counties and autonomous counties
5. The people’s congresses of townships, ethnic minority townships and towns

The 4th election meeting of National People’s Congress in 2012 (Photo from Xinhua Newspaper)

The people’s congresses at all levels are constituted through democratic elections. It shows that the Chinese election system is democratic, and really suitable for China, which has a large population. But it’s really not the truth.

Actually, the National People’s Congress made a decision that Xi Jinping is China’s new President. Xi Jinping got 99.86% of the vote, which is a total of 2955 people. Only 1 person opposed, and 3 people abstained from voting. How can 2959 people represent all 1.4 billion of the Chinese people?

China’s New President Xi Jinping (Video from China Uncensored)

Regarding this question, the Chinese government said that China does have direct election. Direct elections are applicable to the election of deputies to the people’s congresses of the counties, districts, townships and towns. All the Chinese people are voters who directly elect deputies to the people’s congresses by casting their votes. After the direct election, those deputies to the people’s congresses at the low level, who are chose by citizen, and they have the right to vote deputies to the people’s congresses at the next higher level. At the end, they elect deputies to the people’s congresses at the highest level. So it’s fair.

I interviewed my family and friends on phone about the direct election. In general, all of them should know it and join it at least once; but, in fact, most of them told me that they never saw the voting papers in their life. They even didn’t know when or where the election is. They only noticed after the city government posted the list of new deputies to the people’s congresses of our city. No one knows who elected the new deputies and how they elected them.

Election in China—-This animated video narrates how a Chinese boy came to the conclusion that election is of no use after reviewing elections in different countries. (Video from YouTube)

In addition, there is another situation. Some of my friend told me that their parents did participate in the election before, but it was just irregular. One of my friends said that when they wrote on the voting paper, they only could write agree or disagree, because there was only one candidate. What’s more, when the they wrote on the voting paper, the only candidate is there with them. He asked them to write agree in the voting paper and then gave them a gift card. My friend said: of course people would wrote agree, who doesn’t want the gift card? People didn’t know anything about the candidate except their name.

This is the main point that China should care about and make a change. Even the lowest elections of the people’s congresses include bribery, how can the government say that the higher congresses has no such things?

Plenty of people in China hope that they can have election meetings, just like America. In America, everyone can be a voter. The people who run for the presidency deliver a lot of speeches in different places. They try to let America people know more about them and get more support. The public can vote for their own president. Ruifeng Zhu, who is the poster of People Supervision Website, said that the president represents the Americans’ benefits, because the voters chose him on their own. But in China, we don’t have a chance to choose our own president.

US’ Election v.s. China’s Election—China Forbidden News (Video from YouTube)

Chinese people hope that the government can change the election system and improve it. Everyone hopes for democracy.

Reference

“China’s Electoral System.” The National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China. Web. 28 Sept. 2015. http://www.npc.gov.cn/englishnpc/about/2007-11/20/content_1373251.htm

“IX. The Election System.” China Political System. Web. 28 Sept.          2015. http://www.china.org.cn/english/Political/26325.htm