{"id":152756,"date":"2013-03-12T22:58:02","date_gmt":"2013-03-13T05:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=152756"},"modified":"2013-03-12T23:03:07","modified_gmt":"2013-03-13T06:03:07","slug":"chinas-other-parties-pluralism-without-the-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/03\/chinas-other-parties-pluralism-without-the-mess\/","title":{"rendered":"China’s Other Parties: Pluralism, Without the Mess"},"content":{"rendered":"

At The New York Times, Andrew Jacobs probes the role of China’s eight “democratic parties”<\/strong><\/a>, for which the annual Two Sessions offer an unusually prominent stage.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThey are fake parties, just a mirage created for the benefit of ordinary people, although most people are not fooled,\u201d said Jin Zhong, editor in chief of Open Magazine, a Hong Kong political journal. \u201cPeople who join them have a fantasy that they can influence the Communist Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such sentiments are vehemently rejected by the organizations\u2019 leaders, who say the system works just fine, providing the government with detailed proposals and measured advice from those outside the Communist Party. Asked whether he hoped China might one day embrace multiparty elections, Wan Exiang, chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, said such questions betrayed a Western fixation with electoral democracy.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] Zhou Zhongxiao, 30, an executive at an online dating site in Beijing, said his participation in the China Democratic League had provided an outlet for promoting his pet project: the preservation of traditional wedding rituals. \u201cWe provide a useful service by helping the ruling party govern the country,\u201d he said, adding with impatience, \u201cWhy does a party always have to be seeking political power?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Reuters’ new Connected China site provides a brief primer on the parties<\/strong><\/a> and their place in China’s political system:<\/p>\n

\n

China has eight so-called \u201cdemocratic parties\u201d but they don\u2019t interfere with the dominance of the Communist Party. According to the government\u2019s official website, \u201cthe CPC is the sole party exercising political leadership in this system of multi-party cooperation,\u201d which has been \u201cgenerally accepted by various parties and people across the country after decades of practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The parties\u2019 influence is limited and is \u201cwindow dressing\u201d that allows the government to say they listen to outside views, China observer Willy Lam told the BBC. Their membership rolls are comparatively minuscule, and they are barred from challenging the Communist Party\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

Heads of the parties hold vice-chairman positions on the National People\u2019s Congress or the Chinese People\u2019s Consultative Conference (CPPCC), according to pro-Beijing newspaper Wen Wei Po. There has only been one non-Communist Party minister since China\u2019s opening up \u2013 China Zhi Gong Dang (Party for Public Interests) chairman Wan Gang (\u4e07\u94a2), who was appointed Minister of Science and Technology in 2007.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

See more at Connected China via its glossary entry on the eight parties<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More influential than these eight formal parties are the unofficial factions and alliances within the CCP. At China Media Project, Wu Jiaxiang discusses these in terms of a liberal ‘market faction’, a conservative ‘Cultural Revolution faction’ and a mainstream ‘state planning faction’<\/a>, while at BBC News last November, Cheng Li described the Party’s internal politics in terms of ‘populist’ and ‘elitist’ coalitions<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At The New York Times, Andrew Jacobs probes the role of China’s eight “democratic parties”, for which the annual Two Sessions offer an unusually prominent stage. \u201cThey are fake parties, just a mirage created for the benefit of ordinary people, although most people are not fooled,\u201d said Jin Zhong, editor in chief of Open Magazine, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":962,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14744,14745,14746,100],"tags":[318,2798,130,939,5954,16469,4614],"class_list":["post-152756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-politics","tag-ccp","tag-cppcc","tag-democracy","tag-democratic-parties","tag-kmt","tag-national-peoples-congress","tag-two-sessions","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nChina's Other Parties: Pluralism, Without the Mess<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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