Speaking of traditional representative democracy, one may not think of China. But, a Danish academician says that the success of the Chinese governance system rests on permitting the voices of groups in society to be heard, despite their disparate interests. Addressing a democracy forum on Saturday, Niels Jul Nielsen, an associate professor at the Department of Ethnology of Saxo Institute, the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, spoke highly of the Chinese system.

He said that only in listening to the voices of the people can internal legitimacy be the long-term outcome of the governance processes and safeguard a resilient society. Looking at the U.S. system, he argued that the problem is "not a lack of freedom of speech" but the issue lies in the fact that different voices are not brought into a joint democratic process that constitutes an exchange of views leading to balanced solutions to which most of the different interests adhere.

He presented his speech at the "International Forum on Democracy: the Shared Human Values," kicking off on December 4th.