Why China Needs Democracy

A realist defense of constitutional democracy in China that challenges the assumptions of the so-called China Model

With liberal democracies under strain and the Chinese government delivering stability and prosperity to its citizens, is democracy still an ideal worth pursuing in China? In Why China Needs Democracy, Dongxian Jiang makes a powerful case for constitutional democracy in the Chinese context. Doing so, he challenges the so-called China Model, a normative vision that seeks to preserve China’s “meritocratic” one-party system while making it more open, more participatory, and less repressive. Jiang offers instead a realist defense of constitutional democracy that is grounded in a clear-eyed analysis of China’s political realities, a discerning critique of post-Mao moral and institutional problems, and a broad engagement with the findings of empirical political science on both democratic and authoritarian regimes.

Jiang shows that the China Model fails on two realist grounds: it places unwarranted faith in the willingness of China’s leadership to liberalize and share power with citizens; and even with limited power-sharing, the system would be unable to address one of China’s deepest problems—the state’s unchecked domination over ordinary people. For all its flaws, constitutional democracy remains an indispensable framework for limiting the state’s authoritarian overreach. Jiang argues that when realism is understood in a more expansive, historically grounded way—not simply as short-term political feasibility—constitutional democracy in China can be seen to be a realistic and necessary path forward over the long term.