From Paper Mandate to Silent Architecture: Deliberative Democracy with Chinese Characteristics

Research Introduction

Narratives of China’s path to modernity frequently focus on Chinese reactions to the West or on a transition from culturalism to nationalism, or on the successes of the Communist Party of China (CCP) and the failures of the Kuomintang (KMT), or on the relationships of the rural or urban classes with each other. But all of these common explanations for China’s transition (or continuity) into modernity all overlook the role of the “Third Force.”

From the late Qing to today, there have been progressives and conservatives, reformers, and revolutionaries. And many individuals moved among these groups in various periods. There is much work about these political maneuverings and how they affected the superstructure of Chinese society, or how they sought to develop the base of the nation. Yet, throughout this period, there stands a large group of intellectuals and scholars that congealed over time to form the third largest political force in China during the Chinese Civil War. 

The Chinese Democratic League (CDL), formed in 1941 as a joining of many of the other smaller political parties, such as the Socialist Party, the Youth Party, and Construction Party, and so on. Their leader was a man named Zhang Lan. Zhang Lan, as with many of the CDL leaders, had earned a lower level Confucian degree in the Qing dynasty. This brought them respect and admiration from many in the community and it also signified their towering intellect and ability to deliberate the affairs of state with morality.

During the Chinese Civil War, the CDL was the key actor at many of the various assemblies, conferences, and congresses that were held or attempted to be held. They were even the largest faction at the 1946 KMT-sponsored Political Consultative Conference. This was the height of their power as both Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong sought to win them over to their respective side, as the king-makers in China’s new post-World War II government. 

However, the KMT soon promulgated its own constitution, written by a leader of the Third Force, Carsun Chang (Zhang Junmai), who split from the China Democratic League. They also launched their invasion into the CCP-held areas of China, backed by the military might of the United States. At the same time, the CCP all rushed to Manchuria and gained countless tanks, machine guns, and airplanes from the Soviet Union. The Civil War would not end peacefully. From 1946 to 1949 the Civil War was fought in earnest. At the same time, the KMT was struggling to manage the economy in the cities. 

It was precisely this period when the Third Force led a national movement against war and toward a socialist democracy. Instead of a Western parliamentary democracy, which is adversarial by nature, they sought a deliberative democracy that is based on a shared solidarity of all Chinese. One of the key leaders, Liang Shuming, envisioned a supra-party, or a political party made of political parties. In this way, instead of confrontation and struggle, there would be compromise and harmony. Another leader, Zhang Dongsun tried to find a common ground between the KMT and CCP in institutions, not just in thought.  Chu Anping was an ardent supporter of human rights. These lost architects of Chinese solidarity and Democracy rarely grace the pages of history books in English. 

It was during the 1949 Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) where the Common Program was drafted by Zhou Enlai and Hu Qiaomu of the CCP and Zhang Lan, Li Jishen, Shen Junru, and Zhang Dongsun of the CDL. This document became the founding document of the People’s Republic of China before there was a National Political Congress or a formal constitution, both of those institutions would not be created until 1954. However, the first CPPCC was also the turning point from Mao’s “New Democracy” to his “People’s Democratic Dictatorship” and ultimately the sidelining of the Third Force. 

Today, several current scholars of political theory in China, are now looking back to the period of consultation and multi-party democracy to find new sources of legitimacy and stability for CCP rule today. Among this new wave, the highest profile person is none other than Wang Huning, who is currently the Chairman of the CPPCC and the fourth-highest ranking member of the CCP and former head of the Central Policy Research Office. He is widely considered to be the main theorist behind the last three decades of CCP theory. 

In recent years the official Party Work Report delivered by Li Qiang and Wang Huning at the Two Sessions annual meeting of the National People’s Congress and the CPPCC has focused on building more democratic oversight into the legal structures of the state. This may just lead to the undoing of the Party-state system of People’s Democratic Dictatorship and back to a system that the CPPCC and the CDL originally envisioned – a multi-party socialist democracy, now reborn as “Whole Process People’s Democracy.” This also squares nicely with Xi Jinping’s dream of a “community of common destiny” or a “shared future for all mankind.” Xi even wrote a White Paper on Chinese Democracy in 2021. In this way, China is able to pitch an alternative form of democracy to the world. 

While the CCP engaged in counter-revolutionary and anti-rightist purges for decades, the institutional structures of a potential democracy in China remain within the constitution of the state. Moreover, in the last five years they have been made stronger. Is it possible that China will achieve its own form of democracy not by CIA coups or by economic coercion, but instead by its own history and culture being “rebalanced” or “reintegrated” as Xi Jinping has called for? Or is this just another illusion of propaganda by the United Front Works Office? Only time will tell. 

But in the meantime, our CDL friends Zhang Lan and Zhang Dongsun and Liang Shuming deserve our attention, because the lineages of democracy in China began through their solidarity in the CPPCC and the drafting of the Common Program that the CCP is now trying to revive.