BEIJING, March 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Carrying his fellow villagers’ hopes and expectations, Long Xianwen of the Miao ethnic group, headed to Beijing from his remote village in central China’s Hunan Province in early March, to discuss social and economic development with Chinese leaders and the nearly 3,000 other deputies to China’s national legislature.
As a deputy to the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC), Long brought his proposal on supporting the development of deep integration of the tea tourism industry in Hunan’s Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture.
What distinguishes Chinese democracy from the West’s largely money politics and power-for-money deals is its essence — that the Chinese people are the masters of the country.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has said that whether a country is democratic depends on whether its people are truly the masters of the country; whether the people have the right to vote, and more importantly, the right to participate extensively.
The composition of deputies to people’s congresses offers insight into why China’s whole-process people’s democracy ensures people’s status as the country’s masters.
Extensive and universal
In China, there are five levels of people’s congresses – township, county, city, provincial and national levels. Till now, 2.77 million people have served as deputies to people’s congresses at all levels nationwide.
Among them, those at county and township levels accounted for 95 percent of the total, who are elected directly by people in their districts. The upper three levels of deputies are elected by their lower-level deputies.
In the latest election, more than 2.6 million new deputies have been elected to people’s congresses in townships and county-level regions, following the conclusion of local elections in last June.
According to statistics, 921 million voters, accounting for 86.49 percent of registered voters, cast their votes in the election of deputies to the county-level people’s congress….
