Comparison between India and Chinese political systems - Essay Example

?Running Head: HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE PAPER Comparison between India and Chinese political systems Comparison between India and Chinese political systems India is populous country with the largest number of political parties. All the parties participate in election campaigns as well as national elections for instance in the year 1996, six hundred million Indians participated in the electoral process by voting where 26 candidates vied for presidency while other 543 campaigned for the territorial constituency seats (Kulke & Rothermund, 2004, p 53). India conducts its elections at various levels after every five years. For instance, at the national and state level. Due to the large population, councils also conduct elections in towns, cities and villages. India as a country is faced by several political challenges which emanate from different communities some of which demand for social rights, economic empowerment, autonomy of cultures, autonomy of states and others make demands to the government to grant them independence to break from the Indian Union. Despite having these governance problems the country still survives as a democratic single state although there a number of political problems that remains unsolved by the Indian government. Similar to India, China is a communist state with many political parties with the lead part being the Communist Party of China (CPC). Despite having many political parties in both countries, India has more parties as compared to China. Many political parties translate into a high expenditure of time and resources and this are among the factors that have pulled behind the Indian economy since their political structure, functions and environment does not favor creation of multimillion empires investments from international firms. These differences have resulted in creation of a divide among the many Indians who are now lobbying for division of India into states or according to political fronts. China has eight non communism parties therefore there is a divide in the extent of policies likely to be set by each of the differing political fronts. For instance, the government policies are likely to differ depending on the party voted in. Electing a communist party means that they will enforce policies to promote communist ideologies and vice versa. This does not mean that the communist and non-communist fronts do not means to discuss matters of national importance. In 1946, there was a call from the non-communist parties to hold a joint conference known as the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). China’s political system is defined by such fundamental aspects as the laws and the Chinese constitution, the political structure, rules, regulations and practices which are limited by the state power, relationship between the state and societies and the government. It is during the CPPCC that both communists and non-communists came together with the democratic personages and adopted a provisional constitution for the Chinese. Concurrently, the Central Peoples Government was founded and elected by the political elites in China leading to the foundation of the People Republic of China (Pomfret, 2007, p 91). The formation of the Chinese republic marked the beginning of democracy since the non- communists became active participants in decision making and consultants on issues facing the state and its political systems. Likewise democracy is observed by electing members from non-communist parties as deputies to the CPC and in committees of the CPPCC. The Chinese constitution provides for standing committees, national congresses and government organs for instance cultural, economic, educational, technological, scientific and economic departments which are mostly headed by non-communist party leaders. Such a step is pertinent since the non-communists are meant to be whistle blowers and watch digs to monitor government activities and expenditure. For a long time, the two fronts have had a peaceful co-existence while engaging in mutual supervision of each other in order to make the best out of the Chinese political system. The Chinese economy has been growing tremendously in the recent past which has been attributed to its political system which has encouraged legal processes to facilitate investors setting up businesses in the developed and developing towns and cities in the country. The government has also boosted tourism and economic activities as a way of creating employment for the populous country. Unlike, India where the government is less concerned with creating employment for its citizens, Chinese government has encouraged the creation of industries and entering of trade treaties with many countries in the world to create ready market for its goods and services. On the contrary the Indian government has encouraged the development of informal sectors such as the artisan industry where most people run businesses from their homes. In addition, there is persistent use of cheap family labor as a cost saving strategy to make their goods and services competitive in the global markets. To better perform the administrative functions and allocate resources equally to the populated Chinese provinces, the country is divided into 23 provinces each having approximately five autonomous regions and four municipalities. The administrative heads for both the national and state governments are elected by the citizens who vote after every five years. Most of its political system was set in place by the traditional political founders from the Qin dynasty in January, 1912. The dynasty was later replaced by the People’s Republic of China in October, 1949. The country has only one national holiday which is marked as a celebration for the foundation of People’s Republic of China on 1st October of every year. The current constitution of China was promulgated on 4th December, 1982 with several amendments being made in 1988, 1994 and 2004. The Chinese legal system is based on civil laws where the laws are made in accordance with legal principles set in soviet and continental civil code. The legislature is the government body that deals with interpretation of the statutes while the judiciary maintains law and order. India also has three branches of government entailing the judiciary, legislature and executive. They perform similar functions in both countries with the executive being in charge of executing laws that are made by the legislature. Specifically, China has the Supreme People’s Courts where its judges are appointed by the National People’s Congress. There are other courts such as the local peoples courts comprised of basic, intermediate and higher courts. Moreover, there are special people’s courts which include specialized courts to deal with military, foresters, maritime and railway transporters legal issues (Perry & Selden, 2008, p 47). With the advent of advocating for universal suffrage, both India and China equate rights of voting between men and women making the two countries wholly democratic. Both China and India face some social problems which can be attributed to the government and politics in general. Looking at the Chinese economic policies proposed by the government speaks it all. For example, there is a divide between Chinese caused by religious, ethnic and political factors. The schism among the Chinese can be attributed to poor government policies which has placed a lot of emphasis on is supporting the marginalized and minority groups in the country. The government has made policies in order to support the economic empowerment of marginalized regions and it’s not putting in many efforts to support other regions as it used to. This move has been described by most members of the Han Chinese who are the majority population in China as a potential cause of economic disparity. According to them, the government is giving priority to ethnic minority groups by supporting them economically and this is undesirable. Here we see how ethnicity brings a crack in the unity process because the government’s process of reducing economic disparity between the minority and majority is being opposed for political gains by the non-communist parties. According to an internet extract about the political trends in India, the country is drastically transforming from traditional political practices where two national parties were the likely winners of general elections (Dunleavy, 2007, p 221). There has been a rise in upstart and regional political parties which have brought a twist to the whole idea of democracy in India. The Congress Party of India is the ruling party whose chairman is the reigning president of India but the party is under threat from new and upcoming parties. Its presidential aspirant failed to win over the last national elections and this is a new lease of health to the ailing political system that has been recurrent in India. As it is right now, India is preparing for yet another general election later on this year and there are no hopes that the old parties will soon be scraped from the presidential bid. The opposition party called Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is taking its campaigns a notch higher against the incumbent congress party (Schaffere, 2005, p 74). The change in the political landscape and environment is yet an issue to be explained by the political activists and analysts in India but it is thought of as being a revolution from the Indians who are devoted to promoting change. Precisely, the change that is intended to sweep through all the sectors in India are likely to be politically motivated meaning that a change from traditional form of politics will not only transform political policies but also economic, legal, cultural and ethnic policies in India. More twists and puns are on the way since the congress party has been double minded on the issue of reducing economic disparity. Whereas the Chinese government is being opposed for supporting the marginalized regions and the Congress Party of India has shown favors to the rich by promoting contentious policies. For instance, it has advocated for neo liberal economic policies as a way of wooing capitalists who have exploited the poor in India. In addition, the traditional parties have a culture of dividing people in terms of religious lines and caste which has had the effect of invoking communal identities. It is evident that there are a lot of similarities between India and China not only from the political point of view but considering the population and religious factors they are similar. China is also facing threats of ethnic divisions caused by politicians trying to divide the citizens along certain factors e.g. such as ethnicity and class. The major difference between the two countries is that China is a communist while India has a capitalistic economy. Whereas many Chinese have benefited from political and legal policies set by the Chinese legislature, Indian government has favored the rich which has resulted in an increasing annual Gross Domestic Product. The irony is that the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) released by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative together with the United Nations Development Programme in 2010 revealed that 53.7% of Indian citizens are still living below the poverty line. India houses 25% of the world hungriest population with approximately 43% children being malnutrition (Emily, 2008, p 32). The political environment in India has promoted a corrupt service based economy whereas China has a well-established manufacturing led economy promoted by sound political legal policies. The statistics indicated above portray India as a very unique modern democratic country since its economic system is still pegged on a traditional system of political socialization which denies citizens a chance for economic growth by propagating corruption. A lot of money is lost through plethora of financial scams engineered by the politicians and business elites who create neo liberal projects in favor of corporations. The social sectors are stagnated by electoral processes during general campaigns and these calls for an urgent need for change. It’s time for a revolution that will transform the archaic way of undertaking the campaign process, electoral procedures and access to political justice. India has a promising political future. This is evident with the fact that Indians are rejecting polarized politics meant to divide them along ethnic pluralism. The citizens are shunning away from unbeneficial economic liberalization by rejecting the traditional form of political socialization where politicians were accorded a lot of respect and feared as demigods. The end result will be a total re-alienation from selfish and interest aggregation politics into a future focused on sound policy making and disparity in economic growth. Also, the creation of equity in the sharing of the national cake will result in self-awareness which is a big boost to the democratic process of any country. The increased economic prosperity will mark the advent of new democracy oriented political cultures. China is not faced with the same political problems as those identified in India. Basing on the present state of economic empowerment of the Chinese population, the only disturbing issue is ethnic and religious politics which has polarized the citizens. As china reaches its peak in economic growth, it is at threat of collapsing. According to Professor John Quiggin in his article entitled “Chinas Imminent Collapse”, China is set for tough economic and political times which will likely be caused by runaway inflation. It is a fact that communist economies are yet to face a hard time in the wake of economic crisis that are facing the world starting with European Countries such as Greece. The rise of new political regimes is also likely to create a philosophical divide which will crash communism in China. There are also political connections in the governance of China which have been described as ‘guanxi’ in the Chinese language. Guanxi is a Chinese term for connections which means that corrupt connections are among the things eating away into the democratic objective set by the Chinese constitution. A failing economy will be a possible avenue for dictatorship which is a negative change in political culture. The government might then change public policies in favor of capitalism. References Dunleavy, P. & Dunleavy, C. (2007). The effective space of party competition. Journal by the London School of Economics and Political Science. Ret 1st Jan, 2007. Emily, W. (2008). With Indian politics, the Bad gets worse. The Washington Times. Ret 22nd May, 2010. Kulke, H. & Rothermund, D. (2004). A history of India. New York: Routledge Perry, E. & Selden, M. (2008). Chinese Society: Change, conflict and resilience. Washington: Sheldon Publishers. Pomfret, J. (2009). Chinese Lessons: Five classmates and the story of the New China. Xian: ABC Publishers, 2009. Schaffere, C. (2005). Understanding modern East Asia politics. Xinhua: Xinhua Agency. Read More