Had China opted for democracy it would have become another India: Chinese media

Beijing: Deriding India's democratic system, official Chinese media here on Thursday defended ruling Communist Party's monopoly on power, saying if China had opted for democracy it would have become another India "where around 20 per cent of the world's poorest live".

"Hindsight shows us that the Western political system, which is not inherently problematic and was designed to encourage freedom, would have been incompatible to a country where efficiency has driven remarkable economic growth and social development," state-run Xinhua news agency said in a commentary.

"Further, China's feat of becoming the first developing country to halve its population living in poverty would have never been accomplished. Half of the 1.3-billion population may have been recipients of foreign aid, making it a huge burden on the world," it said.

"At best, China would have been another India, the world's biggest democracy by Western standards, where around 20 per cent of the world's poorest live and whose democracy focuses on how power is divided," the commentary said, mocking the democratic political system in India.

"In 2014, India registered a per capital GDP equal to a mere quarter of China's GDP," it said. State-run China Daily which carried Xinhua's commentary as editorial omitted references to India.

"Or, China could have become certain African democratic country that has struggled with civil wars, military junta, coup d'etats and the curse of resources for decades following the end of Western colonial rule in the 1960s," it said.

"The ongoing annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC) China's top legislature, provides a suitable backdrop to reflect upon the country's 61-year-old fundamental political system," it said.

It shrugged off the image of a rubber stamp parliament for its 3,000-strong member NPC for its routine adoption of bills put forward by the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC). NPC is currently holding its 10-day annual session.

"Seemingly endless political bickering, inherent in the Western model, would have resulted in political dysfunction, which in turn would have had catastrophic repercussions for a nation with a population four times as large as the United States," the Xinhua commentary said.

"Should China have adopted a system that facilitated lobbying among interest groups, it would have been caught in a self-perpetuating cycle of endless debates.

"Should China's mainstream political parties have been fiscally irresponsible and pursued interventionist policies globally, like in the United States, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) would have received an inflated military budget — at the expense of development projects.

"This situation would have fed nationalist sentiment, and wars would be imminent. This would have only been good news for opportunists and arms dealers, who would have rushed to cash in on the unrest," it said.

A system that allows plurality is fertile ground for election rigging, vote buying and the silencing of minorities.

In a country as ethnically and geographically diverse as China, the fires of opposition would have been stoked and divided the nation, it said.