What is wrong with liberal democracy?
Fig: Magna Carta. 1215
The West does not have the government know-how to govern a country. For more than a thousand years, the church was in power and govern countries as a church. That was the Middle Ages. That was the Dark Ages. Running a country as a church is totalitarian or authoritarian. Europe was governed by princes in their duchy. That kind of government is a dictatorship.
Then came the liberal democracy. Liberal democracy was created not for a better government but for containing power. From Magna Carta to the Constitution of the United States, the design of liberal democracy is not to have a better government. Government is a necessary evil in Europe, as history has shown that governments tend to be totalitarian, authoritarian, or dictatorship. From Magna Carta to the Constitution of the United States, the design of liberal democracy is to contain government power or to contain evil, as all governments have been evil in Western history. From Magna Carta to the Constitution of the United States, the design of liberal democracy is the restriction of power and the check-and-balance of power.
Liberal democracy today is based on universal suffrage. Politicians do not need to have governmental know-how, as there is no government know-how in the Christian civilization. Election campaigns are all about what a candidate stands for. The power is vested in know-what, not the need for know-how.
China, on the other hand, has two thousand years of government know-how. China had a civil service government two thousand years earlier than Europe. Shang Yang invented civil service bureaucracy in 356 BC, two thousand years earlier than the American Revolutionary War. Shang Yang created counties to replace duchies. A county is run by a civil officer, not by a princess. Chinese political historical experience shows that a government needs not necessarily be evil. There is a way to establish a good government that executes proper governance. That’s why China can put a good man with the capability and governmental know-how in power.
The government know-how is in China. China has a political civilization two thousand years more advanced than the West.
Fig: Declaration of Independence
