A tale of two congresses

Editor's note: Josef Gregory Mahoney, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is professor of Politics and International Relations and deputy dean of the Institute of Singularity Studies at East China Normal University (Shanghai). The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the National People's Congress (NPC), the highest organ of state power in China. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Standing Committee of the NPC held a grand meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing last week to celebrate this milestone.

Anniversaries like these are important in China. Not only do they provide an opportunity to celebrate longevity and acknowledge achievements past and present, but it's also an occasion to call for continuous development and improvement of the NPC itself in tandem with China's system of people's congresses. And this is precisely what Chinese President Xi Jinping did over the course of his remarks at the meeting.

The role played by the NPC has often confounded some people from other countries. Some international critics have even derided it as "a rubber stamp parliament," alleging that the NPC is entirely manipulated by other elements of the Chinese political system. In fact, it would be impossible to rule a country as large and diverse as China without highly effective democratic mechanisms. In China's case, the NPC and the system of people’s congresses are the most important but not the only democratic institutions that ensure that the will of the people guides their governance.

Perhaps those from other countries are confused because the NPC emphasizes unity and working together to achieve positive outcomes. Perhaps this confusion stems from longstanding Western propaganda against socialist systems, but more likely it's due primarily to the otherwise normative practices in many Western legislative institutions that tend to emphasize contention and political infighting.

More to the point, it's important to note that many of these institutions were designed to create precisely disarray, to thereby limit their democratic efficacy, and thus effectively abdicate real power to less democratic branches of government and powerful special interests centered on private property rights, the latter which have always exploited the limits of government in the name of so-called civil society, and so often played the decisive historic role in writing the constitutions that promulgated these systems in the first place.

So it's not surprising that while China was applauding the NPC, the U.S. Congress was moving in a different direction altogether. While the NPC was celebrating its "70th birthday," the U.S. Congress was celebrating "China week," ironically enough, with the House considering 25 new anti-China proposals to bolster America's new Cold War-like tactics.

Simultaneously, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced the U.S. would be moving ahead with new trade restrictions first proposed in April and the Joe Biden Administration immediately asserted that even more should be considered. And just a few days prior to these developments, during the U.S. presidential debates between Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the two candidates took shots at each other, both asserting they would pose a greater threat to China.

Let's not sink too far into the morass of American presidential politics and instead focus on the U.S. Congress, what many Americans deride as the middle of the "swamp." Indeed, the most recently available polling data, from late August of this year, shows only 16 percent of the American people view their national legislature favorably. In fact, approval ratings have been less than 30 percent since June 2021.

For a country that claims to be the vanguard of democracy, and for an institution that is deemed constitutionally to be the very foundation of U.S. democracy, these numbers indicate an abysmal institutional failure, one that portends the failure of U.S. democracy itself.

In fact, the problems facing the U.S. Congress are not independent of the broader problems facing U.S. society. Although the current nadir represents new lows, there has been a sustained downward trend since the early 2000s. Since then, American society has become increasingly politically polarized, incapable of forming durable majorities that in turn exercise mandates for critical reforms. Of the three branches of government in the U.S., the legislative has been the hardest hit by polarization, leaving it increasingly impotent as an effective lawmaking and oversight body.

Consequently, the other branches, the executive and the judicial, have been forced to shoulder more responsibilities, the former ruling essentially by decree and the latter ruling from the bench – neither of which are particularly democratic. This may explain in part why so many Americans are not concerned with allegations that Trump instigated the so-called Capitol attacks in the waning days of his presidency.

Of course, many dismiss the allegations altogether, but others simply aren't too bothered if they're true or that new "coups" might be forthcoming because they consider the Congress to be the problem and not the solution for national revival.

In the meantime, with "China week" and other anti-China efforts being advanced by the U.S. Congress, what we see is a tacit admission of failure: Failing to play a constructive role in solving American problems, it tries instead to create problems for others.

Conversely, in China, and certainly at the NPC, there is a strict culture of avoiding taking sides in U.S. politics and meddling in America's domestic affairs. Instead, the focus is on China's national unity and steadily advancing the already remarkable achievements associated with national rejuvenation. This is why according to the most recent polling data 85 percent of Chinese respondents indicate they trust their political system to make the right decisions, with the understanding that the NPC is the centerpiece of that system.

In short, this is the tale of two congresses, one that exemplifies the development and practices associated with whole-process people's democracy, the other that claims to be the brightest beacon on the hill but is now regarded by the majority of its own constituents as one of the dullest. One moves forward, the other backwards. As one celebrates its anniversary and imagines a better future, the other might well consider whether it will even continue to exist.

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