When democratic deliberation encounters Confucian moral governance:Rethinking consultative politics in rural China

The last decades have witnessed the flourishing of consultative democracy(xieshang minzhu,a concept similar to deliberative democracy)in China,with ambitions for implementing consultative politics and governance.In the West,mainstream deliberative democracy studies largely overlook the fact that deliberation is an elusive and polysemic notion,which develops into various practices in different social and cultural contexts.Therefore,a non-Western-centred approach needs to be adopted to further investigate deliberative experimentation in rural China.Based on the four months of fieldwork conducted in several villages in rural China,this paper argues that China’s rural villages have inherited a strong Confucianism-based idea of deliberation and consultation.With case studies from the sociological-political perspective,this paper also aims to shed some new light on the compatibilities between modern democratic governance approaches and the informal,hierarchical and highly moralised forms of public order in the rural Chinese acquaintance society.Incorporating these empirical observations could bridge the gap between Western and Chinese perspectives on the theory and practice of deliberative democracy.

Research on the Contribution of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in Promoting the Construction of the Chengdu- Chongqing Economic Circle

The influence applied by the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference(CPPCC)in promoting the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle cannot be ignored.At present,the Sichuan Committee of CPPCC and Chongqing Committee of CPPCC are actively participating in the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle by building collaborative platforms,conducting joint consultations,and holding consultations on special issues.From three aspects,namely the unique advantages of the CPPCC,the fact that full consultation between CPPCCs in different regions is conducive to coordinating the interests of local governments of the same level,and that fact that it is also conducive to promoting inter-governmental cooperation,this article elaborates on the necessity of the contribution of the CPPCC in promoting the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle and discusses four paths for the CPPCC’s promotion of the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle:Strengthening the Communist Party of China’s leadership over the political consultation work of the CPPCC,using the CPPCC to consolidate the consensus of“a Sichuan-Chongqing close family,”innovating the form,content,and objects of democratic supervision,and building the information exchange mechanisms between the CPPCCs of Sichuan and Chongqing.

A Chinese Solution Multiparty cooperation and political consultation provide a new way to view democracy

On March 4, President Xi Jinping, also General Secretary of the Communist Party of China （CPC） Central Committee, attended a joint panel discussion with political advisors from the China Democratic League and the China Zhi Gong Party, those without party affiliation and those from the sector of returned over seas Chinese.

The Role of Consultative Democracy in a Constitutional System and the Rule of Law in China

The rule of law in China should be advanced under a systems framework. The systems framework on which the Chinese rule of law relies is shaped by the socialist democratic system. Socialist consultative democracy, which responds to the core themes of the determinant of socialism, Party leadership, the democratic tradition of New China and native resources for constructing the rule of law, is an important resource for constructing the rule of law in China. In a constitutional system of＂ruling Party--political power--the people＂ that takes the sovereignty of the people as the logic of its starting point, consultative democracy plays the role of functional coupling. Popular sovereignty gains political legitimacy on the basis of multi- party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the CPC, thus translating the will of the ruling Party into the will of the state. Consultative democracy constitutes an essential process in national decision-making, affording a basis for the construction of the inherent logical sequence of ＂ruling Party--Consultative Conference--People＇s Congress.＂ The democratic supervision exercised by the Consultative Conference is an extension of political consultation; from it unfolds the systems framework of the rule of law in China.

Toward One Direction

Wu Weihua,a biologist at China Agricultural University and director of the National Key Laboratory of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry,was elected as chairman of the Central Committee of the Jiu San Society,one of the Chinese mainland’s eight non-Communist political parties,on December 7,2017.