Jerry GreySee a video of this article here: https://youtu.be/tEhvGgOUE6c
While some democracies struggle to achieve anything of benefit for their people, I’ve been finding out how China’s form of democracy, albeit a very different form, actually works.
Over the last 18 years, I’ve lived in China, but over the past three of them, I’ve been observing the real China, not through rose-coloured glasses, as some people suggest, but through a microscope. I look closely at what I see and I analyse deeply what I hear then research to make sure it’s true. Then I write, or, more recently, make videos about what I’ve learnt.
In China, social media commentators get invited on trips with the media. I’m no exception but, what I’ve seen in my trips has been exceptional
Vloggers get trips to the fantastic tourist spots, or the coolest companies doing amazing things. These vloggers are far more skilled and they package and present China in a way I could never hope to achieve. I don’t get invited on those trips, but I’m ok with that; what I do is far more interesting.
Sometimes, I’m invited to accompany a media crew to some unheard-of place in China and see how things really work. I’ve visited poverty alleviation programs in Guangdong and Guangxi, I’ve seen AI and IT innovations in Shenzhen and last year I followed the mayor of a Rural Ethnic Minority Autonomous Region for a week to watch how China’s version of democracy works in rural areas.
I saw the ground breaking ceremony of a new dam that will change the region forever and learnt how it will affect a few hundred families living in the valley, I learnt how they were compensated and spoke to them about how excited they were for the future. I saw new bridges, new schools, an orphanage and other infrastructure designed to improve local livelihoods and found for myself that rural China is developing well.
People can say this was stage managed and I get that, but they can’t say that about my cycling trips through the impoverished regions of Ningxia, Gansu and Xinjiang in 2014 and the incredible changes I saw in 2019 when I cycled the same route in reverse. China didn’t build smart apartment buildings behind the old adobe huts to impress me, they didn’t know I was coming back. They build them because the people needed them.
The Two Sessions which take place every year are coming up and, for media here, it’s a busy time. These are the most important annual events of the political calendar. The National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
There’s an important word in both of these titles, “People’s”. As in belonging to the people. You know, like the People’s Republic of China.
Two party democracy has its benefits, a good opposition can have a “catfish effect” on parties in power, they need to keep on their game in order to win support and hopefully get elected next time. I see great benefit in that but there’s no benefit in an opposition that has no honour.
If a party in power wants to build great infrastructure to benefit the people it represents, then building great infrastructure is what it should do, but if the opposition doesn’t have honour or integrity they’ll block it, not because it’s bad for the people but because it would harm their own future election prospects. Sadly, this is what happens in some forms of democracy. Leaders are voted in on what they promise they will do and then stymied every step of the way by their opposition. That’s how great civilisations collapse.
My travels in China over the last year haven’t been as exciting, or to as many famous places, but they have been educational and they’ve been inspiring. They’ve inspired me to create a series of videos which I’m going to share with you, I hope you enjoy meeting the people I’ve met and learning how China’s people direct the government in what they want and how the government listens to what they need.
In the last week, and leading up to a very busy time for these people, I’ve met one delegate to the CPPCC and two Deputies to the NPC. I also met a young man whose life changed after an illegal act, I was involved in an online conversation with a lady who traveled over 2,000 kilometres and spent 80,000 RMB to get medical treatment for her grandmother but is now back home getting what she needs and I met a migrant worker who started as an inexperienced and unqualified security officer but now manages a factory and has literally changed the lives of millions of people.
I’ve got some stories to tell and some facts to relate, I hope you’ll follow this short series and learn as much as I’ve learnt.
First, let’s go to the hospital, see you there…
