Learning from China's Whole Process Democracy experience becomes imperative for Europe

To understand the success of China, foreign scholars and journalists must research much deeper, how China's whole process democracy actually works. The combination of ethical leadership; broad representation and input collection; as well as an intricate system of long-, mid- and short-term planning is governance wisdom the world can learn from. This article goes through this position by substantiating and exploring each part of the assertion.

What does “success” in the context of an entire country mean? There’s no universal definition, but in the case of China, the word success is difficult to negate: tremendous economic growth over decades, not just represented in fictitious numbers, but instantly visible on the ground. From a society stuck in one location, only able to move by bicycle, buses, and slow trains and even steam engines still in the 1980s, to the world’s largest highspeed railway network, largest subway system, largest personal car market, and hundreds of local and international airports; from a society which debated the “wenbao” question just decades ago, how to ensure everyone was well fed, clothed and housed, to a society confident to be leading the high tech race in AI, robotics, quantum technology and bioengineering; eradication of extreme poverty; cleaning up air pollution, the list goes on and on. But also internationally, despite all criticism and false accusations by Western media, China is known as investor, as trade partner, and as keeper of peace. All three are very positive roles. Life expectancy, HDI, GDP per capita, and many other international indicators all show one conclusion: China’s recent history has been a tremendous success.

The whole process democracy, as China’s governance system, a major practice of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a new Era, goes very far and entails a plethora of concrete methods, laws, practices, and institutions. The argument here is that three defining strengths can be identified: ethical leadership, broad representation of the entire population, and institutionalized planning processes at all levels.

Ethical leadership emphasizes the need of political leaders, to not only follow the law, but also adhere to much higher standards regarding personal behavior and job fulfillment. Ethical leadership isn’t an official name for governance of those in power, but it isn’t an empty slogan either: cadres undergo regular evaluations that include assessments of both performance in terms of reaching KPIs and integrity such as compliance with Party discipline or public reputation. Party discipline includes the fight against corruption, but has more requirements, such as avoiding government waste, and failing to be a role model. Those found lacking may be demoted, transferred, or removed—even without formal legal charges. This creates an institutional expectation that ethical conduct is a condition for career advancement. China’s disciplinary inspection and supervision authorities punished 983,000 individuals in 2025, including 727,000 who received Party disciplinary punishment, showing just how serious China takes this topic.

The idea of ethical leadership traces back in Chinese history to the foundational philosophers of antiquity like Confucius, Mencius, Mozi, Laozi, and later the great synthesizer Zhu Xi combining the different schools of thought into one major cultural backdrop which concludes, that laws can’t ensure good governance if the rulers aren’t virtuous. The discussion what ethical leadership means, and how to guide young leaders to become such ethical leaders, is held with great seriousness within Chinese political debate and Communist Party of China literature.

The broad representation in China is famously not achieved through multi-party competitive and oppositional fighting for entrenched positions. Instead, there are various institutions which ensure, people’s voices get heard, nor just during elections, but all the time and through the whole process of making laws and governing the country. For example, there are the People’s Congresses making laws and Consultative Conferences advising at various levels of government, with members who by quota represent vastly different people, be it different economic backgrounds, professions, regions of the country with their different stages of development, or ethnic and religious backgrounds. At national level, representatives of ethnic minorities are systematically overrepresented compared to the total population of China, to ensure minority voices don’t get lost in the antagonistic shouting matches we call “democracy” in the West. Then there are political parties that focus on specific groups of people to provide unique insights into society. They report to parliament, rather than fight for power. There is a system of “letters and visits” to lodge complaints, petitions from the public that must be heard by parliament, to the city hotlines, or to the very powerful method of having local CPC offices in every neighborhood to both explain policies of various levels, but also hear the people’s complaints on the ground. Politicians may never be allowed to distance themselves from the common people, if they are ever supposed to represent the people. In 2025, Authorities handled 221,000 public letters and visits, and the National People’s Congress reviewed 6,705 petitions from the public. A single person's petition can lead to a nationwide change, such as the recommendation by a 71 year old citizen who suggested China's Science and Technology Popularization Law should have higher discounts to museums for young people than the legal draft suggested. The result was that such museums now offer free or strongly discounted prices for minors.

The third big institution, or methodology, is the whole topic of planning. There are the 2 centenary goals as long-term guiding vision, giving clarity to politicians, business people, entrepreneurs, and common people alike, like North Star of where the journey is going. There is the Main Contradiction, like a compass, that always focuses everyone on the most pressing issue, not to get lost in the myriads of challenges a big country faces at all time. There are the well-known Five-Year Plans giving concrete targets for a vast range of topics, far beyond economic planning. And there are longer term industry strategy papers, which allow long-term investment not just in necessary infrastructure and policies to attract relevant companies, but also in necessary education institutions to develop a specific industry – a major task for which a 5 year time horizon wouldn’t be sufficient. As these plans are made through the mechanisms described under “broad representation”, they are designed to represent the goals and hopes of the entire population. The processes are both legally defined as well as led and implemented by ethical leaders. Long-term plans then give stability across personnel changes over the years. For example, the 5-year plans get finalized and start going into effect towards the end of the NPC’s legislature period. So, when new representatives start their work for the next legislature, they can start with ready-made 5-year plans and become effective from the start. Longer-term plans also exceed promotion periods for government officials, to ensure continuity. For example in 2011 the 12th 5-year plan included demands to reduce pollution including specific targets for Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxide air pollution. 2012 under a new cabinet, a ministry-level special plan was released, to specifically address PM2.5 air pollution with clear KPI. In 2016, for the first time, concrete KPIs for PM2.5 reduction were written into the 13th Five-Year Plan as binding national targets, building on the 2012 ministerial special plan. All in all, these plans achieved a stunning success: from 2013 to 2023, the total number of heavy pollution days across China actually fell by more than 90%.

How such mid-term strategies, long-term goals, short-term targets, and Five-Year Plans at all levels of government, interact and mutually inform each other, is hardly ever reported on in Western media. Western academia perceives ideas like political planning of economic development as a deficiency versus Western capitalism, tending to prescriptive conclusions for China to change, rather than trying to learn from the Chinese methods. Democratic representation is often trivialized and reduced to popular elections, despite known shortcomings like the threat of “dictatorship of the 51%”. The more Chinese development overtakes western economies, the more untenable such a prescriptive approach versus China will become. If Europe refuses to learn from the things that work well in China, we run the risk of ending up like the late Qing Dynasty in China: consumed by cultural arrogance, unable to see that our once mighty power has long since been replaced by those, who embraced progress and modernized their institutions. Instead, can Europe keep its established system suitable for European cultures, while learning from the Chinese experience? Could the various elected parliaments, and directly or indirectly elected governments and EU leadership institutions be complemented by binding mid- and long-term plans? Switzerland knows a system of direct popular petition called “initiative”. Rather than directly requiring new laws by popular vote, on European level a petition system which must be considered in building such plans could be implemented. Or mechanism could be developed to enforce concrete consequences for obvious waste of government money, such as the various scandals of excessive salaries for hairdressers of government officials in recent years, that caused public outcry but no consequences. Legitimacy in Europe is in crisis, with multiple governments having approval ratings below 30% among their population. Instead of endless cycles of resignation – election – disappointment, Europe should look for institutional changes to ensure the people get heard, and their will leads to government action more. China is a very large, very diverse political entity suitable for Europe to look for answers and inspiration.

Contributed by Harald Buchmann, founder of Buchmann (Shanghai) CultureTech Co. Ltd.