Election stirs democracy debate in China

BEIJING | The history-making U.S. presidential campaign is sparking an unusual debate in China about the relative merits of democracy versus one-party rule.

According to a recent survey, more than a third of Chinese are paying close attention to the contest between Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain.

Many Chinese have become frustrated by the complicated and drawn-out nature of the process, while others have compared the debates to reality television singing contests — one form of democracy that is thriving in China.

The survey revealed disbelief at the amount of money spent on campaigning in a country mired in an economic crisis that has affected the entire world, but also admiration for the U.S. democratic system at work.

“China should adopt the U.S. election system where the people elect the president directly. China will take this path in the future,” said a 57-year-old fortuneteller who gave only his last name, Xu.

Liu Yang, 14, called the U.S. process “very good” and compared it to elections at her school.

“It’s like the way we elect our class president,” she said. “It’s much easier for everyone to obey the rules” when following someone chosen by the majority.

Reacting to the flurry of interest in the U.S. campaign, the state-run Xinhua news agency has warned Chinese that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the world.

“Western democracy cannot cure all the diseases,” one Xinhua commentary read. “In the courts in the U.S., the right to abortion and the issue of gay marriage is always controversial and has caused a lot of arguments.

“So we can see that even though we admire Western democracy, it still has a lot of problems and reminds us of American deficiencies.”

This kind of article shows that the Chinese government is more defensive now when it comes to democracy, said Shen Dingli, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.

“We used to say the U.S. elections were a bourgeois thing, but now we don’t say that anymore because the people’s level has increased and we can no longer just criticize,” he said.

“Now we say the elections are too expensive, they are too long. This is reflective of pressure from the public. We imply that even if they are good, they are not good for China.”

Many affluent Chinese rank political freedom a distant second to individual prosperity, a line of thought that explains the Chinese government’s concern at the prospect of the country’s annual growth rate dipping below 8 percent.

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