Deputies to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) leave the Great Hall of the People after the closing meeting of the fourth session of the 13th NPC in Beijing, capital of China, March 11, 2021.(Photo: Xinhua)

 
China has the confidence and strength in expounding on its democratic practice, as China has actively responded to people's requests and expectations, developed the whole-process people's democracy and achieved the widest participation of its people, Xu Lin, Vice Minister of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee and Minister of the State Council Information Office, said at a press conference Saturday on the launch of a white paper on China’s democracy.

Democracy is an important idea upheld unswervingly by the Communist Party of China, Xu said at the press conference as China released the white paper on its democratic model, elaborating with details and examples on how the whole-process democracy with people's full participation works in the country. 

"China has the confidence and the strength of expounding on democracy," Xu said, noting that the whole-process people's democracy covers the whole country and more than 1.4 billion people as well as 56 ethnic groups, with the most extensive public participation. 

Whole-process people's democracy is a complete system with supporting mechanisms and procedures, and has been fully tested through wide participation, according to the white paper. It integrates two major democratic models - electoral democracy and consultative democracy -- and it operates a democratic system covering a population of more than 1.4 billion from 56 ethnic groups of a vast country, making possible the wide and sustained participation of all its people, the white paper said. 

In the recent election of people's representatives in counties and townships, more than 1 billion voters participated in the election, Xu noted. 

Since the country's reform and opening-up, China has successively held 12 direct elections of township-level people's congress deputies and 11 direct elections of county-level people's congress deputies. The voter participation rate has been maintained at around 90 percent, he said. 

"There are many statistics and facts in this regard. These all reflect the true situation of democracy in China, and are also a vivid manifestation of the Chinese people being masters of the country," the senior official said. 

Democracy is the right of the people of all countries, not the patent of a few countries, Xu said. Whether a country is democratic or not should be judged by its people; whether or not a country in the international community is democratic should be judged by the international community, he noted. 

Concerning how democracy works in China, the white paper also indicated that as of the end of 2020, all the 503,000 administrative villages and all the 112,000 urban communities in China had established committees, where the residents can directly exercise their democratic right in residential areas.

Every nation should respect others' democratic model based on equal and non-discriminative principle, Xu said, noting that China does not copy other countries' political systems nor does it demand others to copy its practice, as China believes that the world is diverse, so is democracy. Every nation has the right to choose their own path.