China is often portrayed as an “evil” communist dictatorship where allegedly no one can freely express their opinions. But is this really the case? How does democracy function in China? After all, China describes itself as a democratic state. A thorough on-site investigation is necessary to clarify these questions. – Christian Wagner (Beijing)

Expertise Instead of Activism: Democracy in Beijing’s Subdistricts

In March 2024, an investigation took place in subdistricts of Beijing (Haidian). Participants included local residents, lawyers, janitors, property management, sales representatives of the property, and a party representative who chaired the discussion. The topic was the introduction of mechanical speed limits to slow down cars, a discussion at the grassroots level in the neighborhoods. I had the opportunity to participate in the discussion and examine grassroots democracy in China.

In the Kongjia Community of the Haidian subdistrict of Beijing (Zhongguancunjiedao), the viewpoints of all participants were thoroughly discussed democratically. The party leadership only took on the role of facilitating the discussion and summarizing the results. It was interesting that it was not a classic debate aimed at overriding opinions. Rather, each participant sought to empathize with the perspective of others, including absentees such as children, the elderly, or drivers themselves. Both inclusive and psychological factors were considered, and a proportionality assessment took place. In the end, a solution was found that was in the best interest of all parties involved.

During a personal conversation with an elderly neighbor, it was strongly emphasized to me how crucial it is to involve experts. He said that “in China, every democratic discussion is characterized by an academic approach in which experts play a central role with their expertise. Political representatives who lack expertise in relevant areas face too great a challenge in analyzing complex issues adequately. Instead, they tend to argue purely based on their emotions, which ultimately serves no one. Therefore, it is of enormous importance that the party incorporates experts and acts as a mediator between the various sides. In this sense, the party acts almost like a wise father who gathers his children around a table to promote a factual and constructive discussion.”

In another small subdistrict with several tens of thousands of residents in the million-strong city of Beijing, called Huaqinyuan Community, there was a discussion on how local businesses and residents can live together in harmony. In China, companies also have local “citizen duties”. The Communist Party of China supported the organization, so a local research institute for the aerospace industry supported the construction of a small kiosk and a children’s playground.

I was able to attend the opening ceremony, where subsidized food was sold to retirees. In addition, employees of the research institute supported the repair of bicycles or other small tasks for the neighborhood population. In general, all neighborhoods have a shared office where both party members and neighborhood residents or members of other parties sit and take care of administrative tasks, order, coordination, bureaucracy, local development, or opinion formation.

At the opening, I asked a representative of the office about the current challenges in the community. He mentioned that the biggest problem was that fewer and fewer young people were interested in getting involved in the neighborhood, as they increasingly sit at home in their virtual world. I pointed out to him that similar challenges also exist in the West. However, he explained that the role of the party is crucial. Through its networks, it can help, and especially students from various social platforms volunteer.

Businesses and “citizen duties”: Investigation of the entire Haidian District

This was one of the numerous events in Beijing where representatives of local businesses and the seven democratic parties, under the organization of the Communist Party of China, came together from all subdistricts in Haidian (about 3 million inhabitants). Companies like Microsoft were also represented. Some companies presented how they want to improve the lives of everyone in the entire district together with the local government and citizens.

Presentations were also shown on how better cooperation between local businesses can be achieved. Topics such as the construction of a “Smart Infrastructure City”, an “Artificial Intelligence City”, and an “Intelligent Production and Supply Chain” were discussed in particular. Companies compete to demonstrate outstanding achievements in improving the local living conditions of the people and thereby receive special support from the government and party. It’s a win-win situation.

Exposed Illusions: Western Misconceptions about Communism and Democracy in China

There are still widespread misconceptions in the West about communism, often leading to the belief that it is supposed to take from the rich and redistribute to the poor, similar to Robin Hood. In reality, however, this notion is more of an extremism, which Lenin himself referred to as the “infantile disorder of communism”.

Mao Zedong emphasized in his work “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People” that it is naive to believe that contradictions between people can simply be eliminated. Rather, it is about finding ways for everyone to pull together. The Chinese concept of win-win cooperation stems from this idea. At the grassroots democracy level in China, this means that companies, the local population, the government, individuals, and all democratic parties work together to address issues of public interest. Public interest especially means that local people find work, are adequately supplied with affordable food, and have housing.

China has often struggled with poverty and hunger in the past, similar to many other developing countries. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to stabilize this basic supply. Through these efforts, the People’s Republic has been able to lift over 800 million people out of poverty. It is a mistake to assume that companies are forced to do so. In fact, companies benefit greatly from their own investments and can test their own products in practice and conduct experiments, invest in the education of young people locally, or even improve their own structures, instead of just paying taxes.

China’s democratic system has two levels. On the one hand, there is the central government, which sets framework guidelines and laws from top to bottom. On the other hand, there is the “collective” or “inclusive” democracy on a horizontal level, where all participants of public space are involved in debates, especially experts. Therefore, activism is also frowned upon because activism is often associated with people arguing based on their feelings without considering the profound overall circumstances. Activism therefore takes place, among other places, in universities in the form of professional debates.

Iran’s retaliation against Israel has once again revealed the wonderful products of our conspiracy theory industry. I have no doubt that we will be in the top three in the world without having played a game, and if we are on form we will be playing either a Middle Eastern or Balkan country in the final. If conspiracy theories were an exportable product, we would certainly be in the top five in the world in terms of per capita income.

In fact, the tensions between Iran and Israel are literally a game of chicken. In reality, the Iranian regime is just one of Israel’s puppets. The government in Tehran pretends to be against Israel, but behind the scenes it is working with it. If it can mobilise hundreds of drones, why doesn’t it hit important Israeli targets? Or why has no one been killed in Israel?

Of course, I know that there is no point in trying to refute them; but it is impossible not to regret that these conspiracy theories can be voiced uncontrollably in a significant part of the media, as an indicator of the intellectual level of our country. Listening to them, I feel like saying: ‘Hitler was also a Soviet agent. Stalin recruited him early on. The Second World War was already a central piece. Hitler’s aim was to ensure Germany’s defeat and to take control of the Soviet Union’s vast Eastern European territories’. Incidentally, the fact that the Soviet Union alone suffered 27 million deaths (one and a half times the population of Turkey, which was eighteen million in 1945) is a minor detail. It is not likely to disprove my conspiracy theory. Besides, there is no one around to ask these questions.

Codes of Iranian retaliation

In essence, Iran responded to the Israeli attack on its embassy in Damascus with more than adequate retaliation. More than adequate because Iran could have hit some Israeli targets outside Israeli territory. In fact, in recent months it had hit some sites in northern Iraq allegedly used by Israeli intelligence. But this time it targeted Israeli territory directly. And it should be underlined immediately that this is the most comprehensive attack on the entire territory of Israel since its establishment, taking its place in military-political history.

As for the claim that Iran did not or could not use weapons that could have inflicted greater damage on Israel, the answer to the first question is directly related to Tehran’s aversion to a regional war. From the Iranian point of view, the clock is ticking in its favour because Iran’s influence has grown enormously in Iraq and Syria – supposed democracies that Washington, with not very clever calculations, destroyed simply because they were anti-Israeli. In these two countries, groups known to be pro-Iranian and calling themselves the Axis of Resistance have gained power, while the Hezbollah movement, which was born in Lebanon as a result of Israel’s policy of nothing but violence, has established full contact with Iran through Syria. Add to this the strengthening of the Ansarullah movement in Yemen and the gradual Hezbollahisation of Hamas, i.e. its transformation into an effective resistance organisation, and Iran seems to have placed Israel under a serious siege in the region.

As multipolarity irreversibly restructures the world balance, Israel’s main supporters, the US and Europe, calculate that they will suffer a serious loss of power and sphere of influence, and they are not wrong in their calculations. There is no doubt that the decline in the power of the US and the collective West will reduce Israel’s room for manoeuvre in the Middle East. Moreover, Iran, which is said to have reached the final stage in its efforts to build nuclear weapons, has no reason to want a regional war. On the contrary, it is Netanyahu and Israel that want a regional war and are trying to drag America into it, because the Tel Aviv government, having achieved nothing that could be considered a success (the rescue of hostages, the capture/killing of prominent Hamas leaders, etc.) in its genocidal ethnic cleansing operation in Gaza, which for the first time has been strongly criticised even by Western public opinion, sees its salvation in dragging Iran into the war. This is why he is carrying out his provocations against both Hezbollah and Iran.

Netanyahu is also using provocations against Iran in order to draw the American administration, which does not want a war with Iran, into the conflict. The recent bombing of the consulate in Damascus was designed to do just that. Iran has therefore had to build up its strike capability on nuances (an area in which conspiracy theorists are very poor). In other words, it had to respond, but it had to do so in coordination with the United States in a way that would not lead to a major war. That is exactly what Iran did over the weekend. Hundreds of drones and Hezbollah’s rapid fire, which began as they approached Israeli airspace, must have been designed to keep Israel’s so-called Iron Dome air defence system busy with more targets than it could handle. Taking advantage of the vacuum created by this saturation, ballistic missiles apparently caused serious damage to critical Israeli airfields (Nevatim and Ramon).

Moreover, it appears that Iran did not hit these airfields with hypersonic missiles, because if it had, the details of an important weapon in Tehran’s inventory would have been revealed and Israel, on the one hand, and the United States, the United Kingdom and their allies, on the other, would have begun a feverish study of what could be done against this weapon. In other words, Iran seems to have applied the most important rule of strategy and retaliated without showing all its cards. It has shown Tel Aviv that it can strike anywhere in Israel without using hypersonic missiles.

CNN ezzle

It is also clear that there is nothing serious in Iran’s claims that the attention of anti-Israel or Israel-critical public opinion or Western states, which was focused on Gaza, has suddenly turned to the Iran-Israel conflict and that Gaza has been forgotten. Such rhetoric is based on the assumption that Israel has stopped or will stop its operations in Gaza. But after this retaliation, in which Iran has shown Israel what it can do, eyes will turn back to Gaza. On the one hand, if the Israeli offensive in Gaza is suspended or stopped, this would be a serious point in Iran’s favour because it would put it in the position of being the country that protects/rescues the people of Gaza from Netanyahu’s genocide. On the other hand, if the Israeli offensive continues, all eyes will turn there again.

There is also a contradictory situation in Western countries between public opinion, which is increasingly critical of Israel, and the governments that support Israel, and this situation is likely to continue. In other words, we are talking about a Western world that will not/cannot stop supporting Israel, whether Iran retaliates or not. From this point of view, we can conclude that Iran has given a nuanced response when balancing this issue with the demands of its own public opinion for retaliation. The retaliation was both sufficient and did not lead to a regional war. So Netanyahu did not win.

The repercussions of Iran’s retaliation in regional politics showed once again that it has not received, and is unlikely to receive, political support from the Arab countries. While Jordan actively defended its airspace against Iran directly with Israel and the United States, the rest of the Arab countries, with the exception of Syria, did not allow the passage of Iranian drones and missiles. This shows that the Arab countries are in favour of treating the Palestinian issue as their own family problem. These Arab countries, which are negotiating and struggling with Israel and America on the Palestinian issue, consider the attempts of non-Arab Muslim states to take a central role in the Palestinian issue with political Islamist slogans and religious justifications such as Islamic brotherhood as an intrusion of others into their legitimate sphere, and there is no doubt that there are lessons to be learned from the Turkish government, which has shown its willingness to be active on this issue on every occasion.

For the time being, the possibility of a regional war seems to have been averted, but it is almost impossible to predict what provocations Netanyahu or any other Israeli government might resort to if it wants to launch an all-out war against Iran, dragging America into it. There is no Israeli political formation/government on the horizon that would internalise a two-state solution by taking serious steps backwards in Palestine, taking into account the possibility of diminishing American aid in a multipolar world. On the other hand, while those in Gaza are being subjected to genocidal ethnic cleansing, the Palestinians in the West Bank, whose homes and lands are being confiscated, who are constantly oppressed and persecuted, have no choice but to resist. The region is likely to remain a hot zone of conflict in a multipolar world until the US presidential election. If Trump is elected and translates his ideas into foreign policy, the regional equation could change significantly.

In what is already one of the most anticipated elections in the Latin American and Caribbean region, this March 25 the deadline established by the National Electoral Council (CNE) expired for political parties to officially nominate their candidates for President of the Bolivarian Republic in the electoral elections to be held on July 28. In total, thirteen (13) candidates has been registered, among them, as expected, is not María Corina Machado, who is disqualified by the Venezuelan Electoral Justice, but who in any case campaigned throughout the Caribbean country generating direct confrontation with the highest Venezuelan electoral authority and with the government of Nicolás Maduro.

The entire Venezuelan electoral process has been surrounded by criticism, speculation and conflicts within and between political parties, in addition to pressure and interference from the United States and part of the European Community to intervene in the election of candidates (such as María Corina Machado (who They are disqualified by the Venezuelan Electoral Power, for various irregularities, among which conspiracy and betrayal of the country stand out, to try to overthrow Nicolás Maduro. Although the economic and social situation has had a slight improvement in the last year, Venezuela is still going through an important socio economic crisis, which is why the result of the next presidential elections is uncertain.

Electoral schedule

On March 5, the Board of Directors of the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) unanimously established the date of the schedule that will be carried out in the coming weeks and months, establishing July 28, 2024 as the day for hold the presidential election, as announced by the president of the highest electoral authority, Dr. Elvis Amoroso, in the company of vice president Carlos Quintero and the rectors Rosalba Gil, Aimé Nogal and the rector Juan Carlos Delpino.

In accordance with the CNE decision, the special Electoral Registration day will take place from March 18 to April 16; The members of the subordinate electoral bodies will be selected on March 20; The presentation of candidate applications was scheduled from March 21 to 25; and the electoral campaign will begin on the 4th and will end on July 25.

Choosing the date was not an easy task nor was it born of free will, but rather it was a process of debate and democratic consultation that included the participation of political forces of various ideological orientations. The debate took place in the Venezuelan streets and in the respective grassroots organizations, as well as within the traditional political parties, and the proposals for tentative dates were presented

and defended in the Venezuelan National Assembly itself, within the framework of a National Agreement. on General Principles, Calendars and Electoral Guarantees. This Agreement was signed by the National Assembly with the different political sectors of the Caribbean country, and was subsequently presented for consideration by the CNE, on March 1st. Finally, the recommendations of the dates transmitted from the Legislative Branch to the Venezuelan Electoral Branch led to the decision to hold the next elections on July 28, the day that coincides with the birth of President Hugo Chávez (1954).

Confirmed candidates

The candidates who have run before the CNE for the 2024 Presidential Election are the following:

• For Chavismo: Nicolás Maduro (Gran Polo Patriótico)

For the opposition:

• Antonio Ecarri (Pencil Alliance)
• José Brito (First Venezuela)
• Juan Carlos Alvarado (Copei)
• Luis Eduardo Martínez (Democratic Action – AD)
• Luis Ratti (Popular Democratic Right)
• Benjamín Rausseo (National Democratic Confederation – Conde)
• Daniel Ceballos (Arepa Digital)
• Javier Bertucci (The Change)
• Leocenis García (Prociudadanos)
• Claudio Fermín (Solutions for Venezuela)
• Luis Enrique Márquez (Centers)
• Manuel Rosales (Fuerza Vecinal)

In this sense, the Venezuelan political organizations that have expressed their willingness to participate in the presidential elections are: Podemos; Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV); Love for Venezuela; Homeland For All (PPT), We are Venezuela; Alliance for Change; Green Movement of Venezuela; Future Venezuela; Venezuelan Popular Unity; Authentic Renewal Organization; Unified Trends to Achieve the Organized Revolutionary Action Movement (Tupamaro); People’s Electoral Movement, as well as; Democratic Action (AD); Red Flag (BR); Republican Movement (MR); National Student Union (UNE); Corn cake; Activist Popular Will; Pencil Alliance; Let’s Change Citizen Movement; National Integrity Movement – Unity; Progressive Advance; Independent Electoral Political Organization Committee (Copei); First Venezuela (PV); Venezuela Vision Unit; United Venezuela; Hope for Change; National Democratic Confederation (Conde); and Solutions for Venezuela; Popular Democratic Right.

The Bolivarian fury (La Furia Bolivariana)

Also, this Monday, March 25, the so-called Bolivarian Fury, forces that support and recognize the leadership of Nicolás Maduro, filled the center of the city of Caracas to join the “Great National March” to accompany the registration of his presidential candidacy. Maduro before the president of the CNE, Elvis Amoroso, and the rectors of the body.

In addition, the National Directorate of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), as well as the social movements and political organizations that make up the Great Patriotic Pole (GPP), participated in this activity.

In that sense, the first vice president of the PSUV, Diosdado Cabello, stated that: “today it is the PSUV’s turn to register its candidate, after more than 317 thousand assemblies throughout the country, where in a sovereign, democratic manner, our bases decided that brother Nicolás Maduro be the standard bearer of love for the Homeland.”

María Corina Machado’s substitute

Opposition leader María Corina Machado, disqualified by the CNE, nominated Corina Yoris, a renowned Venezuelan philosopher, 80 years old, who was a member of the commission that organized the October 2023 opposition primary, which chose Machado as a presidential candidate. of the opposition, even without being legally able to participate, participated in primaries controlled and observed only by the opposition.

Yoris, despite being a prominent Venezuelan academic, does not have extensive experience in Venezuelan politics, and is not widely known by the majority of the Venezuelan electoral population. However, the support and indication of María Corina Machado should be enough for Machado’s followers to automatically support her. The political forces that support his candidacy are the Un Nuevo Tiempo party and the Democratic Unity Roundtable.

At the end of this note, 8pm on Monday, March 25, Yoris has not been able to register his candidacy, registrations that are online and not in person, which is why a new wave of criticism has arisen on social networks and in the traditional press media, since it is understood that it is the government of Nicolás Maduro that would be preventing his candidacy. The extension of the deadline for the registration of applications by the CNE would also be evaluated. However, neither of these things has been confirmed at the moment.