US Democratic presidential candidates. Photo: IC

Western countries' electoral system has created competition and seems democratic. But, in fact, the elites have always been Western countries' ruling force. Through overt and covert measures, money arranges everything. The elites help the capital to actualize interests, and thus form a values-interests alliance. Because of such a system, the elites drift away from the common people.

Such a phenomenon and its problems are common in Western society. For example, under most circumstances, Western political systems do not aim at resolving problems, but use the problems to start political struggles. Thus, the problems, instead of being resolved, quickly turn into ideological disputes.

Take Obamacare. Its original intention was to resolve the problem of 30 million Americans who have no health insurance. But the disputes always focus on whether Obamacare is unconstitutional, or whether it violates different people's choices.

Such examples are countless. Controlling guns is a realistic need in the US. Deadly shootings take place in the US every year, and the number of victims is much larger than the number of American soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. But as long as the issue is raised, there will be disputes on whether it is unconstitutional and whether it violates rights, as if the dispute is more justified than protecting lives. 

Arousing people's enthusiasm is broadly used under the Western system. But the effect is not always positive. For example, adults have helped Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg to push environmental protection to the limit, triggering people's complicated responses.

Currently, Western society is somewhat chaotic. Populism has helped some far-right parties and politicians emerge, which can be seen as an extreme result of the elites drifting away from the common people.

Promoting hard-line diplomacy is Western elites' typical act. Western elites benefit most from the old international order. Thus, they are most attached to the old pattern and are most interested in geopolitics. To gain public support, they hype the ideology that helps promote hard-line diplomacy. In fact, this is the "nationalism" that they accuse the developing countries of.

US national security can be considered the most secure in the world, but US elites claim their national security has been severely shaken. Then the country boosts its defense, upgrades its weapons, builds new aircraft carriers and comprehensively strengthens its military superiority. But all those deviate from the actual concerns and interests of Americans.

China's national strength was quite weak in the 1980s and had strained relations with the Soviet Union, but it was able to build its peaceful development strategy at that time. However, the US elites are now seriously misjudging the world situation as well as Americans' expectations. They are guiding the country to put resources in the wrong direction.

The Western electoral system cannot solve the problem of political elites drifting away from ordinary people.

Interests, under the capitalist system, are always more powerful than the electoral system. 

People from Western countries share the same wish with those from other parts of the world - they all wish for economic development, a good job and decent salary, and a prosperous life. German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently visited China with a large business delegation. It seems that she wants to create momentum for the German economy by strengthening China-Germany cooperation. But German and Western media have been urging her to put Hong Kong's human rights on top of her agenda. 

However, are Hong Kong's human rights issues the interests of German people? How many people in Germany and the West genuinely care about Hong Kong? The huge gap between Western elites and people is obvious.