In my work with the China Resource Center, people will often ask me whether China will someday have a political system that resembles a Western-style Democracy. This is a great question and is one that is often related to Westerners ability to work openly in China. In other words, often when people are asking me this question, there’s a caveat to the question, if you will. Their thought process is often something like, “Once China has a completely democratic society, we’ll be able to do more ministry in China.”
In my mind, there is a lot to unpack in order to adequately answer their question. The motive behind their question is actually what strikes me first. It is my opinion that many Western Christians tie together the idea of greater political freedoms in China with more ministry opportunity. I believe that is true to an extent, but would not completely tie the two together. More on this side of the question later.
For now, let’s take a brief look at whether Western-style democracy is in China’s future. The short answer to this question is that I do not see a multi-party democracy in China’s future throughout the course of my life. But don’t despair too much because China is headed toward continued political freedom, just not in the way that you may want them to go. Of course for all of us, we like things that are familiar and having China move in a direction that would mirror our own political situation. But as is the case with much dealing with China, the Chinese approach a particular situation in its own Chinese way.
For those of you who really want to know more about the rise of democratic principles in China, may I highly recommend an article by John Thorton, who does an excellent job of covering the issue from all angles. This article, while quite long, gives an excellent look at the situation from several angels. In terms of democracy in China, although the top leaders at the national level see an increasing role for elections, particularly at the local level, they are quite firm that a more ‘deliberative’ form of politics that allows each citizen and group to add their views to the decision-making process is better suited to the Chinese situation than open, multiparty elections for national power. They often talk about meritocracy, which fits the long-held Chinese system of examinations to test a candidate’s ability and competence for office. There is also a school of Chinese government think-tank scholars that favor more of a social democracy for China’s future. A major reason that many intellectuals and government leaders in China may be drawn towards a social democratic model is that social democrats aim to reform capitalism democratically through state regulation. They also favor the creation of state-sponsored programs and organizations, which work to improve or remove injustices purportedly inflicted by the capitalist market system. Social democracy normally has an extensive system of social security (which is already in place in China) and a government system that regulates private enterprise in the interest of workers, consumers and fair competition.
Given the unique nature of what is taking place in China within these different debates, the current power structure and those that are in power in the Chinese government and the long history that serves as a context for the debates, I cannot see a situation where we’d see a multi-party democracy any time within my lifetime. So what does this mean for those of us interested in impacting China for Christ? In next weeks blog post, I’ll give you a deeper examination and answers to that question. In brief, I think we must first accept the fact that democracy is not coming to China any time soon and fit our organizational goals accordingly. Just because the form of government in China is different than our own does not mean that effective and meaningful ministry cannot take place.
