Commentating Constructing the Mechanism of Political Participation in Multi-party Cooperation System

Constructing the mechanism for the Democratic Parties to participate in politics plays an important part in the multi-party cooperation system. However, many problems existing in China's current political mechanism have prevented the Democratic Parties from playing their roles, such as, the weak consciousness in political participation of the Democratic Parties, the unsound organization mechanism and the backwardness of the institutional construction in political participation resulting from their characteristics and the social reality. In light of these problems, the awareness in political participation of Democratic Parties should be enhanced, organizational construction should be strengthened and the political participation system should be innovated in the process of multi-party cooperation.


The convergence of political objectives
Participating Parties in China have the political objectives of their own when founded.For example, the political goal of the Revolutionary Committee of Chinese Kuomintang is to "achieve the revolutionary Three Principles of the People and build a new China with independence, democracy and happiness.The China Democratic League has the political objective that "the people are the master of a democratic China", "its sovereignty belongs to all the people", and "the country should implement the constitutional democracy".China Democratic Construction Association has the "furthest ideal that a country should be of the people, by the people and for the people".China Association for Promoting Democracy has the political objective of fighting for the democracy and realizing the democracy.The Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party has the political goal of "fighting against imperialism and feudalism to establish the agro-industrial civilian regime".China Zhi Gong Dang's political goal is to "fight for the real China's political democratization" and the political objective of the Jiusan Society is to "work hard for the realization of democracy and science".Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League aims at establishing a democratic coalition government and an independent, peaceful, democratic, prosperous and well-being China." With the founding of the People's Republic of China and the gradual deepening of the practice of socialism, the ideals of the Participating Parties have gradually tended to the realistic goal of the Chinese Communist Party, namely, "developing the socialist market economy, socialist democracy and socialist advanced culture, and constantly promoting the coordinated development of socialist material civilization, political civilization and spiritual civilization, and propelling the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation".(See note).The convergence of political objectives is the first and most important characteristic of Chinese Participating Parties, which indicates that they are certain to support the Communist Party of China and participate in politics and take the ruling philosophy of the Communist Party of China as their own ideal and put it into social practice.There are two aspects concerning the convergence of political objective of Chinese Participating Parties.As for the major social and political goals, they agree with the Communist Party of China.On the other hand, every participating party has its own political goal.Both are included each other.In detail, the major social and political objectives contain those of the Participating Parties.

The loose grass-roots organizations
The organizational form of a political party is related to its role and social status in society.The Chinese Participating Parties, because they have participated in politic politics, mainly have gained development in medium-sized and large cities and formed only three levels of the Central, provincial and municipal organizations.In the Civil Servant Law of the People's Republic of China, only members of these three levels of organizations are grouped into the scope of the civil service agencies.Different from the three levels of organizational forms, grassroots organizations of the Chinese Participating Parties have loose organizational forms, namely, the heads and members of grassroots organizations have their own appointed tasks and they are only part-time workers for the parties.Members of the grass-roots organizations of Chinese Participating Parties participate in politics through the grass-roots organizations, or through access to the people's congresses, governments, the organizations of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in the non-occupational form.The loose grass-roots organizations of the Parties result in their casual activities and no source of fund of operation.

Problems of constructing the mechanism of Chinese Participating Parties' participating in politics
Since the time from the end of the 20th century to the 21st century, driven by building the modernizations and the system of socialist market economy, the mechanism of political participation of various Democratic Parties as the Participating Parties has developed in the direction of modern think-tank with a greatly-improved level of participating in politics.All the Democratic Parties have played a better role in the performance of participating in politics and democratic supervision.However, due to various reasons including the inherent characteristics of the Participating Parties, there exist some problems of participating in politics, which need further improving and bettering.

Weak awareness of political participation and poor conscientiousness and sense of mission of participating in national political life
On condition that the political goals of the Participating Parties and the political objectives of the ruling party have come to convergence, the Participating Parties have obvious weak consciousness in political participation.In history they have experienced great setbacks in politics.Although since the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Democratic Parties have obtained relatively rapid recovery and development, their initiative in politics still needs improving.In particular, some Parties are inactive in independent thinking and have weak abilities to participate in the state affairs.They are willing to be the understrapper of the Communist Party of China.A significant number of members are lack of enthusiasm and they think that joining in a democratic party is to make friends, to seek an organizational support or spiritual sustenance.Their joining the Democratic Parties is not a political choice, but out of utilitarian purpose and blindness.All these have vulgarized the nature of the Participating Parties and to some degrees brought some negative effects to the political activities of the Democratic Parties.In addition, the new members of Democratic Parties have some characteristics of intellectuals in social transition.They are well-educated with more personal experience, but lack of political experience, collective and political awareness, and sense of mission.

The unsound organization mechanism can not meet the effective participation in politics
All Democratic Parties have experienced several decades since their founding.Each has initially formed the political party system and established local organizations at all levels throughout China.However, there are still some problems concerning the organization mechanism, which has greatly influenced and restricted their participation in politics.Firstly, in the replacement of the leading group, the Democratic Parties have adopted the charismatic leadership pattern for a long time.The selection of a considerable part of the leaders is lack of long-term institutional arrangements.The work procedures are arbitrary and some Political Parties even appoint those from other parties who become members at a surprise speed to be leaders, as can't maintain the continuity of work and participation in politics.Secondly, the loose grass-roots organizations have resulted in the single way and monotonous form of the activities, which has affected the attractiveness and cohesiveness of the grass-roots organizations of the Democratic Parties.Finally, in the new era, the Democratic Parties have expanded in organizations, but the organizational construction can not be in line with it.At present, the cadres of the Democratic Parties are managed according to the Civil Servant Administrative Regulations.The personnel posts are of small number and the personnel flow is comparatively difficult.Therefore, it is not easy to get high-quality personnel and hard to exchange cadres.This also makes the organs of the Democratic Parties lack vitality and affects the improvement of their ability in political participation.

The backwardness of the institutional construction of political participation has prevented the Democratic Parties from exerting their functions of participating in politics
Since China completed the socialist transformation, the Democratic Parties have become "the political Parties devoting to the cause of socialism" and the Participating Parties officially of the party structure of the multi-party cooperation led by the Communist Party of China after the recognition of "the CPC Central Committee's Opinion on Adhering to and Improving the CPC-led Multi-Party Cooperation and Political Consultative System" and "Constitution of the People's Republic of China".But since the institutionalization of multi-party cooperation started relatively late with low standard, rigid principles and small coverage, the participating system is weak in operation and loose in implementation.For example, members of the Democratic Parties participating in the state administration, their posts in the People's Congresses and governments have not been guaranteed institutionally.And there are no specific documents concerning their democratic supervision, no certain criteria to measure how they perform the duties of participating in politics and democratic supervision.Their undertakings are quite of randomness.

Some suggestions on improving the mechanism of the Political Parties' in politics
In order to further improve the pattern of political parties of the multi-party cooperation in China, and build the Democratic Parties into a new force of democratic supervision and political participation, we should establish and perfect the operation mechanism of the Participating Parties confirming to the situation in China, and of the Parties and the characteristics of the times to bring into full play the advantages of China's political party system and the unique roles that the Democratic Parties have played in the socialist modernization and reunification of China.

Consciously enhancing the awareness of the Political Parties, and exerting the full play of the subjective initiative of participating in politics and democratic supervision
Political awareness is a basic prerequisite and realistic basis for the existence of a political party, and the focus of party building.To consciously enhance the awareness as the political parties, they should correctly understand and handle the relations with the Communist Party of China, and get rid of the consciousness of understrapper.All Democratic Parties should not only accept the leadership of the Communist Party of China politically without offside and usurping of the power, but also, strict with themselves as the independent political parties, lead all the members to enhance the awareness as the Political Parties, improve the abilities of participating in politics to carry out the political participation independently according to the Constitution.Secondly, they should strengthen the education of history and constitutions of all the Democratic Parties and fully understand the course of struggle, treating each other with sincerity and sharing weal and woe with the Communist Party of China, further comprehend the inevitability of accepting the political leadership of the Communist Party of China and the feasibility that all political parties independently carry out their political activities, and ideologically combine accepting the leadership of the Communist Party of China with carrying out the independent political activities.Thirdly, it is necessary to fully understand the characteristics and advantages of China's political party system, and to recognize that China's political party system has summarized the experience of long-term cooperation of the Communist Party of China and the Democratic Parties, which is conductive to the socialist democratic political construction and promoting China's socialist modernization cause.(Wang, 2007, p.31).

Strengthening organizational building and realizing the value of the Participating Parties
Participation in politics is fundamental for the Participating Parties to exist and the important form to realize the value of their own.On the new historical conditions, the Participating Parties should improve their abilities to participate in politics through the organizational building of their own, and give more valuable views or suggestions concerning the state affairs.First, cadres of the Participating Parties should abide by the organizational procedure.They should be produced by their organizations in the way of democratic consultation and democratic election and kept in record by the organization department, which should be formed as the internal system to eradicate the arbitrariness of appointing cadres in accordance with seniority.At the same time, the Political Parties should inspect and supervise the cadres sent to participating in politics and put forward the suggestions concerning those, unfit for the position, who are removed and replaced when necessary.Secondly, cadres from the Participating Parties should regularly participate in the activities of the organization of their own parties, for those cadres, first of all, are the party members and must participate in the daily organizational activities, which should be set up as a basic provision of the organization system.Those who have violated it must receive punishment of discipline or even the removal of the eligibility of their participation in politics.Meanwhile, when they participate in the daily activities of their own political parties, as far as the content (except those of confidentiality) and the projects concerned, they must lead the building of political participation within the parties, which should be formed as a fix system, to improve the overall level of political participation and enhance the capacity of the cadres in participating in politics and exert the role of coordination.Finally, efforts should be made to attract members in society, in particular, the building of grassroots organizations, to strengthen the social influence of the Democratic Parties including the tasks of recruiting new party members and party education, the cadre contingent building especially the cultivation of the representatives.(Wu, 2005, p.279).

With the breakthrough of the institutional innovation, the institutional construction of political participation should be strengthened to institutionalize, standardize and formalize the participation in politics and democratic supervision system
The improvement of the mechanism of political participation of the Participating Parties will inevitably meet the requirements of the socialist political party system to protect the realization of the right of the political participation.At present, the Participating Parties in China have politically participated in state power, the consultations of major state policies and the leadership candidates, the management of state affairs, the formulation and implementation of the state policies, laws and regulations.The key issue is to make multi-party cooperation system clear and specific and operational.How the Participating Parties can participate in politics, how the ruling Party and the Participating Parties conduct consultations and cooperation and democratic supervision in the pattern of the multi-party cooperation must be guaranteed institutionally and procedurally.The Participating Parties should be guaranteed to participating in politics institutionally.And they should have the right of consultation and the right to know major national decision-making, and the institutional arrangement for democratic supervision and work connection.Based on the above analysis, firstly, the appropriate proportion should be ensured of members of Democratic Parties in the People's Congress of national, provincial, and city levels.Secondly, when members of the Democratic Parties are selected to be leaders of the governments at all levels, their ages and seniority of holding post can be properly relaxed and those meet the requirements can undertake the chief positions.Thirdly, it can be considered that priority can be given to select members of the Democratic Parties to be in the leading positions of the prosecution, and judicial organs.Fourthly, all the Democratic Parties should be guaranteed to have the floor to deliver speech and submit proposals at the CPPCC (Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference) session, and the rights in inspection, and participation in investigating major issues and special inspection organized by the authorities concerned.Finally, at the appropriate time, the proportion of positions of the Democratic Parties in governments can be guaranteed to the minimum degrees.(Xiao, 2000, pp.192-193).
In short, we must give full play to the cooperation, the main theme of China's multi-party cooperation system.The Democratic Parties should have a high sense of political responsibility and mission to share political morals, ideology and undertakes with the Communist Party of China, play the role of democratic supervision and political participation circling around the overall goals proposed by the governments and the Party committees at all levels.The Communist Party of China and the Democratic Parties will cooperate closely to realize mutual progress and mutual development.

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The members are all elites Due to historical reasons, Chinese Participating Parties are composed by the elites from all walks of society, who are representatives of middle and high-ranking intellectuals of various industries or occupations in the middle and large cities.Members of the Revolutionary Committee of Chinese Kuomintang are the representatives of those who have something with the original Chinese Kuomintang and all circles in Taiwan.Members of the China Democratic League are representatives of those engaged in cultural and educational work.Members of China Democratic Construction Association are mainly from the economic circle.Members of China Association for Promoting Democracy are mainly from the circles of education, culture and publication.Members of China Peasants' and Worker's Democratic Party are from the medical and health sector.Members of China Zhigong Dang are representatives of those returned overseas Chinese and their relatives.Members of the Jiusan Society are mainly from the sector of science and technology.Members of Taiwan Democratic League are representatives in the mainland of Taiwan origin.At present, the eight Chinese Participating Parties have the total number of 60 million people, 1% of the total number of the Communist Party of China.After several decades of development, the China Participating Parties have undergone great changes while remaining the advantages.The ranges of industry and occupation of the members have been expanded.And a new meaning is added to the definition of every Participating Party.The original still has the principal advantage with the participation of the elites from other Parties.The Participating Parties are the unification of universality and progressive nature with members of elites from different walks of society.