China issues white paper on its democracy

BEIJING, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- China's State Council Information Office on Saturday released a white paper titled "China: Democracy That Works."

Democracy is a common value of humanity and an ideal that has always been cherished by the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people, said the white paper.

Over the past hundred years, the Party has led the people in realizing people's democracy in China. The Chinese people now truly hold in their hands their own future and that of society and the country, said the white paper.

The people's status as masters of the country is the essence of people's democracy, it said.

China's whole-process people's democracy integrates process-oriented democracy with results-oriented democracy, procedural democracy with substantive democracy, direct democracy with indirect democracy, and people's democracy with the will of the state, it said.

It is a model of socialist democracy that covers all aspects of the democratic process and all sectors of society. It is a true democracy that works, the white paper noted.

Democracy is a concrete phenomenon that is constantly evolving. Rooted in history, culture and tradition, it takes diverse forms and develops along the paths chosen by different peoples based on their exploration and innovation, it said.

Democracy is not a decorative ornament, but an instrument for addressing the issues that concern the people. Democracy is the right of the people in every country, rather than the prerogative of a few nations, the white paper noted.

Whether a country is democratic should be judged by its people, not dictated by a handful of outsiders. Whether a country is democratic should be acknowledged by the international community, not arbitrarily decided by a few self-appointed judges, it said.

There is no fixed model of democracy; it manifests itself in many forms. Assessing the myriad political systems in the world against a single yardstick and examining diverse political structures in monochrome are in themselves undemocratic, it added.