this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2026
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The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people's democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China's success.
I highly recommend Roland Boer's Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we've learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.
Xi Jinping is not a "neo-Maoist," he's a Marxist-Leninist, same as all of the leaders of the CPC since Mao.
This doesn't actually bear out concretely in reality. The fact that the government has high approval rates is directly related to the consultative form of democracy practiced in China, and the nature of a socialist state as governed by the working classes. Western states see less support because they are dominated by a tiny minority, whereas China is led by the majority.