and an asset for rulers". This underlying functional and pragmatic attitude
toward democracy influences the way that the Chinese leaders have adopted
Western democratic practices. It leads paternalistic leaders to reject essential
elements of Western democracy and only take advantage of certain
formalistic elements of Western democracy for the sake of pragmatism.
They regard democracy as mere wordplay or rhetoric rather than as a serious
or significant business. Chinese democracy, as a response to the need of
modernization, is expected to be a means rather than an end and thus is
secondary to the supreme value of power. The priority of nationalism over
democracy, patriotism over individual rights, has led the Chinese
Communists to sacrifice democracy to "revolutionary necessity" in their
struggle to make China a Great Power. This attitude guides, and confines,
31 Liang Qichao quoted in Nathan, 1986, 56. Machiavelli also stresses the priority of national freedom to individual freedom. He argues that freedom is a form of service, since development to public service is held to be a necessary condition of maintaining personal liberty. If we wish to maximize our freedom to control our private affairs without anxiety or interference, the moral is that we must first turn ourselves into whole-hearted servants of the public good. See, Skinner, 1983, 4.
the political actions of paternalistic leaders; they always hesitate and falter w hen faced with the challenge of democratization.
2. The Paternalist's Concept of Democracy
A ccording to the official ideology of China, which is based on Marxism- Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, the dom inant concept of democracy is not that of liberal-democracy. Instead, democracy is seen in Mao's terms: the m asses keeping w atch over the bureaucracy under the m onocratic guidance of a national leader. It is also seen as a good go v ern m en t "serving the people". Marx called dem ocracy "proletarian rule" and this constitutes the key concept of dem ocracy held by the Chinese elites. In contrast to the W estern individualistic trad itio n w hich was liberal first and dem ocratic later (M acpherson, 1976, 6), China has sought to combine dem ocracy with authority, dictatorship and centralism rather than w ith freedom. Its leaders b eliev e th a t in d iv id u a l freed o m conflicts w ith dem o cracy , as w as d em o n strated in Deng's cam paigns against "bourgeois liberalization" in both 1983 and 1987, and expressed in Deng X iaoping's u n d erstan d in g of democracy: "The dictatorship of the proletariat m eans socialist democracy for the people, dem ocracy enjoyed by the w orkers, peasants, intellectuals and other w orking people, the broadest dem ocracy that has ever existed in history" (1983, 176). Deng explains some features of socialist democracy:
We m u st m ake a special effort to explain the q u estio n of dem ocracy clearly to the people, and to our youth in particular. The so cialist ro ad , the d ic ta to rsh ip of the p ro le ta ria t, the lead ersh ip of the C om m unist Party and M arxism -Leninism and Mao Z edong T hought — all these are tied up w ith dem ocracy. W hat kind of democracy do the Chinese people need today? It can o n ly be so cialist d em o cracy , p e o p le 's d em o cracy , an d n o t bourgeois dem ocracy,individual democracy. People's democracy is in se p a ra b le from d ic ta to rsh ip o v e r the en em y a n d from c e n tra lism b a se d on d em o cracy . We p ra c tic e d e m o c ratic cen tralism , w hich is the in teg ratio n of cen tralism based on dem ocracy w ith dem ocracy u n d e r the guidance of centralism . Dem ocratic centralism is an integral p art of the socialist system . U nder this system , personal interests m u st be su b o rd in ated to collective ones, the interests of p a rt to those of the whole, and
immediate to long-term interests. In other words, limited interests must be subordinated to overall interests, and minor interests to major ones. Our advocacy and practice of those principles in no way means that we can ignore personal, local and immediate interests (1983, 182-183).
In Deng's thinking, there are three elements to which we should pay attention: (1) the people's rule over the government, which is the main principle of democracy; (2) leadership and centralism, which is the necessary condition for democracy; and (3) collectivism, which is not only the starting point for his concept of socialist democracy but also the major principle for resolving the conflicts of different interests in practice. In this concept of democracy, Deng rejects the Western power system:
In developing our democracy, we cannot simply copy bourgeois democracy, or introduce the system of a balance of three powers. I have often criticized people in power in the United States, saying that actually they have three governments. Of course, the American bourgeoisie uses this system in dealing with other countries, but when it comes to internal affairs, the three branches often pull in different directions and that makes trouble. We cannot adopt such a system (1987: 163).
He claims superiority for Chinese socialism:
The greatest advantage of the socialist system is that when the central leadership makes a decision it is promptly implemented without interference from any other quarters. When we decided to reform the economic structure, the whole country responded; when we decided to establish the special economic zones, they were soon set up. We don't have to go through a lot of repetitive discussion and consultation, with one branch of government holding up another and decisions being made but not carried out. From this point of view, our system is very efficient. We should neither copy western democracy nor introduce the system of a balance of three powers. We should uphold socialist democracy, so as to retain the advantages of the socialist system (1987: 192).
To maintain the political leadership of the Communist Party, Deng was already to suppress by force any opposition movement which challenged Communist authority. As he claimed in 1986:
We cannot do without dictatorship. We must not only affirm the need for it but exercise it when necessary. Of course, we must be cautious about resorting to dictatorial means and make as few arrests as possible. But if some people attem pt to provoke bloodshed, what are we going to do about it? We should first expose their plot and then do our best to avoid shedding blood, even if that means some of our own people get hurt (1987: 163- 164).
3. The Paternalistic Model of Democracy
The Chinese paternalistic model of democracy is a "protective democracy", under the monocratic guidance of paternalistic leaders, which maintains and strengthens national power rather than protects individual rights. In contrast, it is said of the "protective democracy" of liberal theory that "nothing less could in principle protect the governed from oppression by the government" (Macpherson,1979, 22). The Chinese paternalistic model of democracy is, too, a "developmental democracy", which prefers to develop the nation rather than the individual, whereas the term "developmental democracy" in liberal theory is used to mean "a means of individual self development" (Macpherson, 1979, 22). Also, when conflicts occur between the collective interests and individual liberty, the Chinese paternalistic model of democracy affirms the supreme value of the former over the latter, and liberty must be subordinated to collective interests. Finally, the Chinese paternalistic model of democracy has not emerged from the ideas and practices of private property and a free market economy; rather it is a mechanism through which the state intervenes in certain issues concerning social equality, especially those which are conducive to a stable and secure society. Contrarily, the demand for liberal democracy and rights-based morality in China results from the development of a private market economy which is significant as the foundation of social power independent of the state (Chapter 7).
Mao's model of democracy placed great emphasis on equality and social-security-achieving-communism at the expense of liberty. Deng gave