China View: How Do Village Elections Work in China?
“Village Elections in China.” (CREDIT: Carter Center)
When researching China, experts have often focused on the economic development China has undergone in the last three decades, however, its political development is a much more underresearched topic. This is because most of the literature assumes that China has remained under a political system that is very similar to the communist system present under Mao, however, this is not accurate. In fact, the Chinese government has inevitably changed to satisfy the hybrid system China is today, challenging the fine lines dividing capitalism and autocracy.
As explained by professor Zhang Weiwei in the CGTN video below, China’s political system is based on meritocracy, meaning that leaders are able to advance their career within the Communist Party only depending on their experience in the field, and their successes and failures at the township level, county level, and provincial level to access the core of government. Professor Zhang Weiwei names this system as a “selection plus election” system or electoral system with Chinese characteristics.
Despite global criticism on this arrangement, similar but also very different from the widespread concept of democracy in the West, it is undeniable to say that, in reality, village-level elections are extremely important in China, a country where Eastern coastal cities lead, but where rural areas have even greater significance for the equal and harmonious development of the whole of China. Democracy is indeed a social value cherished among the 12 Chinese Core Values of the CCP, but it has a very different meaning from the democracy found in Europe or the US. The innovative system in China presents indeed a core failure of the democratic political systems abroad, which claim to be the protector freedom and individual rights but which then fail to accept that democracy is not applicable to all countries’ systems, and that some countries will inevitably take the sides of democracy which are most suitable for their society, politics, and economy.
In June 1987, the National People's Congress passed the Experimental Organic Law of Village Elections, achieving permanent status the following year and establishing new prospects for rural governance. According to the Chinese model, it is usual to experiment with laws or policies on designated areas in rural or urban China, to then assess their results in that area and, if successful, apply them on the national scale. As of 2020, the Organic Law of Village Elections is no longer an experiment, and has, according to the Electoral Knowledge Network, successfully managed elections to be held in all 31 Chinese provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities, giving all those aged 18 or above the right to vote and to be elected without discrimination of gender, religious belief, family background, educational level, property, or period of residence in the community. “The Election Law mandates the basic norms of a democratic process—secret ballot, direct election, and multiple candidates,” then elected to the Village Committees to work directly with local communities and governments. According to the Carter Centre, village elections have been held in about 600,000 villages across China, allowing 75% of the population to elect their local leaders.
Village leaders then have a three-year mandate with the possibility of being re-elected with no limit on the number of terms they can run for. Generally, villagers elect between three and seven members to the Village Committees, including one chair and one or two vice-chair, which will then administer financial, public, health, and security issues of the village. According to O’Brien and Han’s Path to Democracy? Assessing village elections in China, electoral procedures have improved in the last few decades and a number of free and fair elections have been held, however, “changes in the exercise of power have not kept up with changes in the access of power”, meaning that authorities at different levels of society seem to impede the processes of democratization in China. The pivotal question which scholars fail to ask, however, is: Are Chinese village Elections a predictor of democratization?
The most probable answer is that village elections are a predictor of change in China, but not democratization, as this may neither be a political nor a social desire. Giving villagers the voice to present local problems to their village committees and, by extension, to their local government allows the central government to gain legitimacy. There is a concern that the overall low educational level of villagers does not allow them to fully understand the meaning and importance of elections, but at the same time, these do give them the possibility to participate actively in the political agenda, be it directly or indirectly. Generally, however, it is difficult to state whether democracy would work in China. The political system is already very much complicated and elections are only a means to improve governance at lower levels, which remains very difficult to monitor due to the number of people inhabiting rural areas.
Governing a country like China, with a population of over a billion is tough, and a democratic system could only add confusion to the already complicated process. In other words, Chinese public opinion is set on the idea that democracy is not the appropriate system to govern Mainland China, and that the current status quo gives the Chinese government the opportunity to have immediate power on lower levels of governments and, therefore, have general control on all layers of society, which wouldn't be possible with democracy. Decision-making would otherwise be slowed down, to the point that consensus between provinces or even villages in the same county would not likely be reached under democracy.
This does not mean that the Chinese government counters political change because, if elections are being held in villages, no one can say they won't be held in larger towns and cities in the future. The consequence of this, however, does not necessarily imply that the core of the government will change. China is challenging a lot of concepts that scholars once considered untouchable, for instance, it is creating a hybrid economic system pushing the boundaries of the known and the unknown. It is likely China will continue to do so in the political or social domains of society. One change that is likely to happen in the near future concerns gender in politics. While, for now, the Chinese political system has been overall male-dominated, more and more women will slowly have an impact and be part of this process in the future. Then again, this does not equal democratization, because gender equality is a value that China has cherished since its communist era, and therefore, will be able to easily implement in the future. Below, a short video by the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) shows how women are already changing leadership in rural China.
