U.S. Governance: Not The Gold Standard

China has recently consolidated the theories and practices associated with its whole-process people’s democracy, which was first named formally in 2019, and more clearly expressed this year. As a recent white paper on the subject clarifies, it reflects the longstanding effort to build and advance a socialist people’s democracy in China, one century in the making.

Released in early December, the white paper notes that people in China enjoy universal suffrage and do vote in elections with much higher turnout rates than seen in the U.S., with much higher trust in governance and satisfaction in policymaking as well. In fact, there is a multitude of democratic mechanisms in the Chinese system, but above all, it emphasizes that one cannot sacrifice the