Substance without all the sparks
By Jules Quartly (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-03-18 07:23

From this outsider's perspective looking in, the annual sessions of China's top legislature and political advisory body appear to be remarkably harmonious.

By the end the first session of the 11th CPPCC National Committee, 4,772 proposals had been raised, covering agriculture, healthcare, education, employment, social security, housing, environmental protection and food and drug policies.

But among the suggestions and polite discussion there seems to have been little time left to argue. There was none of the obvious cut-and-thrust that characterizes politics elsewhere.

Legislative sessions in the United States, much of Europe and in many Asian countries, for example, often feature a lot of grandstanding, with politicians arguing their cases and being shot down by members of the political opposition. Prime minister's question time in England is a bit like bear baiting. Politicians wait their turn to savage the leader and when they smell blood jump in for the kill with a rhetorical lunge.

This was termed "adversary politics" by the scholar S. E. Finer and characterized as "a stand-up fight between two adversaries for the favor of the lookers-on".

This raises the question: When does the arguing happen? Before the NPC-CPPCC? Or after? Is Chinese politics really so harmonious? As an outsider, I thought it prudent to ask the insiders, journalists who know how the system works.

One reporter who is covering the sessions said there were, in fact, differences between delegates and their disagreements were public. She pointed to the case of the "symbolic city" planned in the hometown of Confucius in Shandong province.

The 300-sq-km city is intended to revive traditional values and will be a site for national ceremonies. It is projected to cost about 30 billion yuan ($4.2 billion).

Even so, this did not deter CPPCC member and president of the Anhui Dramatists' Association Hou Lu from speaking up. She said she was a taxpayer and didn't want her money thrown away on a white elephant, then wrote a counter-proposal and started a petition against it.

Another colleague said NPC deputies were encouraged to be more outspoken. A cursory look at our own coverage reveals a diversity of opinions. For instance, there was a plethora of suggestions on how to improve healthcare.

These ideas will be forwarded, along with the other proposals, to standing committees for further consideration and possible implementation. Presumably there will be counter proposals and nitpicking over the details. This is "democratic centralism" in action, a tenet of the Constitution.

My feeling is that openness and transparency are important, if only for the reason that we tend to show what we are proud of and hide what we are ashamed of. It is also an important mechanism to hold people accountable.

More people generally have better ideas and make better decisions than just one person. This is why public input in the political process is necessary.

Adversarial politics and hissy fits add spice for the media, sells papers and drives up clicks on the Internet. But eventually the public tires of it, hence the apathy of many voters in established democracies.

The model here is socialist political democracy, which entails people making proposals, discussion and collective decisions so the majority is respected while the minority is protected. In action, it appears more consensual than argumentative.

The author is a writer / copy editor with China Daily

(China Daily 03/18/2008 page7)