I am a citizen of the People’s Republic of China. I have lived in mainland China, Hong Kong, and the United States.

Elections in China are, for the lack of a better word, completely fake. I’ve seen it myself. Very few people in China genuinely believe that voting is a way to get what they want. Candidates are vetted by the local Communist Party chapter and must generally agree with the party doctrine (or at least not oppose it) and be either a Communist Party member, affiliated with it (standing as an independent), or a member of one of the nine smaller parties. China is a one-party state. Dissent is limited to disagreeing on where the bus shelter should be built, not the fundamental direction of the country.

If you openly proclaim you oppose the direction of the country and the Government, fat chance you’ll be allowed to even stand for election, let alone be elected.

I’m not saying that China’s political system is bad, although it certainly has its flaws (not related to elections). China’s system, by and large, works for its people. And Chinese people are perfectly happy with what they have and wouldn’t ever trade it for an election-based system. But it isn’t Western liberal democracy as Americans or Europeans would define it.

Do not use “Orientalism” as a moo word. You might not like what I’m saying, and that’s fine. I am describing what my experiences are as a Chinese person.

I am a Chinese person.

The traditional Western definition of a democracy is “a form of government where power is vested in the people and expressed through elections”. By this definition, China is highly undemocratic because there aren’t genuine competitive elections on any level.

The word “democracy” (民主) as used in Mainland China means “a system of government where leaders respond to the needs and demands of the people”. This is slightly different in that a government doesn’t need to be elected to be democratic, it just needs to be responsive to popular demand. China’s government, especially at local levels, is very responsive to local demands, even more so than in the USA (have experienced both personally). So by this slightly different definition, China is democratic.

In Western political philosophy, China’s definition is actually “benevolent government”, not “democracy”. You can argue that being democratic would actually just be meaningless under the Western definitions if the government isn’t benevolent, and I would agree wholeheartedly. But unfortunately English sticks to the Western definitions which is why the statement “China is democratic” will raise eyebrows when said to a crowd of English speakers.

I think, to an extent, Western-style liberal democracy is never going to work in China. In any big country, it has a nearly universal tendency to turn into oligarchy.

Is it really that hard to do your own taxes? I was taught to do this in school and it’s really not hard if all you have to do is write in how much money you made and then claim the standard deduction. If your taxes really are that messy then you can hire an accountant to do it, and they’ll do it ten times better than any tax software could, because if the software could do it better then they’d bloody use the software.

Edit: was mostly referring to people who work a job and that’s it, which is probably 80% of the population