From The Korea Times:
China’s release of a white paper on the country’s political party system purports to show that it has a system of “multiparty cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.”
This, presumably, is meant in part at least to counter criticism that China is nothing but a one-party dictatorship.
…… It is true that when the Communists gained power in 1949, they had the support of the Chinese people _ and of the minority parties. However, this support needs to be reaffirmed periodically in free elections, but these have never been held.
In any other part of the world where elections are held, the Communist Party would have been thrown out of power after the disasters of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. [Full Text]