BEIJING, March 22 (Xinhua) -- "Chinese leaders use the Party to do an enormous amount of research into what the people are thinking, feeling, experiencing and want," said Stephen Perry, Chairman of the 48 Group Club, at the third "International Forum on Democracy: The Shared Human Values" held in Beijing on Wednesday.
"So I think China is on its way to a good form of democracy. It hears its people, and it tends to do what its people want," Perry added.
At this forum, over 200 guests from various countries, regions and international organizations engaged in discussions on topics including "Democracy and Modern Governance," "Democracy and the Rule of Law in the Digital Times," "AI and the Future of Democracy" and "Democracy and Global Governance in a Multipolar World."
Speaking of the value of benevolence in state governance, Ong Tee Keat, former deputy speaker of the Lower House of the Malaysian Parliament, said that this idea propounded by Mencius 2,000 years ago speaks volumes of the relevance of people-centric governance in ancient China, even before the word "democracy" was being promoted.
"The subject predominates state and the monarch in the hierarchical significance of benevolent governance," Ong quoted Mencius in both Chinese and English.
"This millennium-old wisdom now finds its resonance in the whole-process people's democracy in China," Ong said. "Its philosophy may remain incomprehensible to the West, which is more familiar with electioneering, populism and gerrymandering. Nonetheless, it's the relevance of people's participation and the end results of governance that matter most."
WESTERN DEMOCRACY FACING CHALLENGES
Western democracy is not the ultimate definition and standard of democracy, and it is increasingly facing severe challenges.
Marcio Pochmann, president of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, said that lack of rationality in elections, inefficiency in government affairs, immigration, and economic stagnation have severely damaged the sovereign foundation formed since the establishment of Western nation-states.
Alexander Lomanov, deputy director of Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations at the Russian Academy of Sciences, said Western elections are often a competition for people's sympathy, in order to get the vote.
"After the ballot, the people's needs will be forgotten. That's the greatest problem," said Lomanov, adding that one of the greatest advantages of China's democracy is there are no empty promises.
Su Changhe, dean of the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University, noted that the Anglo-American world retains many characteristics of feudal and aristocratic systems.
"Such institutional arrangements result in not all people being served, and the concept of the people is divided," said Su.
"Forceful implantation of Western-style democracy often leads to outcomes contrary to the vision of peace, stability, and prosperity," said Hassan Ragab, professor and director of the Confucius Institute at Egypt's Suez Canal University
Western-style democracy does not adapt well in developing countries, exposing its institutional weaknesses, he concluded.
Massimo D'Alema, former prime minister of Italy, said the Western model cannot be exported and imposed in other parts of the world "precisely because it is the result of a long and peculiar historical process," as experiences in Afghanistan and the Middle East have shown in recent years.
D'Alema added that expansion of the liberal democratic model has come to a halt today and "our model of Western democracy has lost credibility and attractiveness."
DIVERSE CONCEPTS OF DEMOCRACY SHOULD BE RESPECTED
In 1991, Rui Lourido, then a young Portuguese scholar, participated in a UNESCO project, visiting China for the first time and developing a keen interest in the country. The trip led him on a path of Chinese studies that spanned more than three decades.
"The whole-process people's democracy in China is a very objective one, a very effective one," Lourido, who is now serving as the president of the Observatory for China in Portugal, told Xinhua.
"We need to learn from China. And we need to study China and not consider China as a threat as what some Western countries nowadays do," said Lourido, adding that democracy should emphasize justice, freedom, societal stability, and economic development.
Democracy is a common value for all humanity, and the right of peoples of different nations to choose their own path of democracy should be respected.
As the global dynamics are now going increasingly multipolar, respect for diversity in democracy is no longer a myth but a reality to embrace worldwide in pursuit of a coherent global governance, said Ong.
Ong's remarks were echoed by Lourido, who said that cooperation should be advocated for to allow all humanity to share the benefits of democracy.
"Unite different colors, ingredients, and shapes, ending up as a beautiful painting," said former prime minister of Egypt Essam Sharaf, who believes that by harmonizing differences through people-to-people connectivity, humanity can break cultural barriers. Enditem
(Xinhua intern Sun Ruoqi contributed to the story.)
