A model for constructing Chinese discourse

　　In his speech at the 2016 Symposium on Philosophy and Social Sciences, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized the dimension of position, culture and innovation in the construction of Chinese philosophical and social science discourse. It is precisely in these three dimensions that the whole-process people's democracy breaks through the hegemony of Western-style liberal democracy, and has the people's nature in terms of standpoint, the Chineseness of culture and the innovation of theory, and a full understanding of these three dimensions is conducive to a deep understanding of the principles and methods of the construction of local discourse in Chinese philosophy and social sciences.

　　The maintenance of the position of whole-process people's democracy

　　The biggest difference between social science and natural science is that the object of study has subjectivity. The object of study of natural science is the objective natural world, while the object of study of social science is man and human society. Human beings have the initiative to exist with positions and interests, therefore, social sciences cannot be value-free, and "adhering to the guidance of Marxism is the fundamental symbol that distinguishes contemporary Chinese philosophical and social sciences from other philosophical and social sciences." The core of Marxism is to "solve the problem of who people are", and Chinese philosophy and social sciences "must adhere to the people-centered research orientation" and adhere to the position of serving the greatest number of people. Whole-process people's democracy is a democratic concept that takes the people as the center, stands on the people's standpoint, and safeguards the people's interests.

　　In the field of academic research, democracy is a controversial concept, and different concepts of democracy have different views on the core values of democracy, and the adjective in front of democracy is the confirmation and regulation of the core values of democracy. The Western-dominated view of liberal democracy holds that the core value of democracy is freedom. The concept of people's democracy holds that the core value of democracy is the people, and the essence of democracy is that the people are the masters of the country. From the source, the concept of people's democracy originated from Rousseau's theory of popular sovereignty, which believed that popular sovereignty cannot be divided, and the goal of democracy is to ensure the realization of "public will". The premise of the concept of liberal democracy is the denial of the "public will", which does not recognize that the people have the interests of the whole and that society is composed of different individuals and groups, so there is only "public will" and no "public will".

The essence of democracy is the competition between the "will of the people", and in order to prevent the majority from forming a stable "will of the people" that infringes on the rights of the minority, it is also necessary to limit the power of the government and prevent the tyranny of the majority. The concept of liberal democracy can be said to be a bourgeois democratic concept without the people, which uses pluralism to negate the majority, and through institutional arrangements, the people who can be united are cut horizontally and vertically, so as to prevent the people from uniting to infringe on the overall interests of the bourgeoisie.

　　The concept of people's democracy criticizes the anti-people nature of the concept of liberal democracy. Although there are differences in the interests of individuals and groups, such differences do not hinder the existence of the interests of the people as a whole, still less do they have priority over the public interest and the interests of the whole, and democracy must ensure the realization of the people's public will. Whole-process people's democracy is the improvement and development of the concept of people's democracy, and while emphasizing the people's standpoint, it also pays more attention to the institutionalization and process of people's democracy, and through the interaction and integration of democratic elections, democratic consultations, democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic supervision, the people's democracy can be put into operation, and state power can be better held in the hands of the people and serve the people.

　　The cultural dimension of whole-process people's democracy

　　General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that the construction of Chinese philosophical and social science discourse "should strengthen the excavation and interpretation of the excellent traditional Chinese culture, so that the most basic cultural genes of the Chinese nation can adapt to contemporary culture and coordinate with modern society, and carry forward the cultural spirit that transcends time and space, transcends national boundaries, is full of eternal charm and has contemporary value". Whole-process people's democracy is a democratic concept that embodies China's position, Chinese wisdom and Chinese values, and is a creative transformation and innovative development of China's traditional concept of people-orientedism. China has a long tradition of people-oriented ism. Since the Western Zhou Dynasty, the people-oriented, the world for the public is the political ideal of the Chinese sages, "the world is not the world of one person, but the world of the people" affirmed the concept of the country for the people, "what the people are good, what the people are evil" affirmed the proposition that the country is for the people, but due to the lack of the idea of people's governance, China's traditional people-oriented is still one step away from democratic politics.

The reason for this is, as Xu Fuguan said: "Traditional Chinese people-oriented thought rarely seeks to solve political problems from the position of the governed. As a result, political issues are always swirling in the hands of the prime minister, so that the main body of real politics is not established." Whole-process people's democracy is to establish the people as the main body of politics on the basis of inheriting the concept of traditional Chinese people-orientedism, and to change from the government being the master of the people to the people themselves being the masters of the country, thus realizing the democratization of people-orientedism.

　　The democratization of people-oriented democracy is embodied in two levels in whole-process people's democracy: First, whole-process people's democracy is built on the basis of the socialist system. Although China's traditional political culture emphasizes the people-oriented and the world is public-oriented, due to the autocracy of imperial power and the landlord land ownership system, the people-oriented politics in ancient China did not have the support of public ownership, and the ideology was people-oriented, but the system design was monarchism, so that the ideal people-oriented politics could only be pinned on the personal conduct of the monarch and the bureaucrats. The establishment of the socialist system has created a political and economic foundation for the people to be the masters of the country, and only under the conditions of the socialist system can the people become the main body and ontology of politics. Second, the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has provided an institutional guarantee for the people to be the masters of the country. People's democracy emphasizes the realization of the overall interests of the people.

In a socialist country, the people have the common interests of the whole, but the people as a whole belong to different classes, occupations, and families, and it is difficult for them to spontaneously form a public will. The Communist Party of China represents the fundamental interests of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation and is the leading force of people's democracy in the whole process. With the socialist system and the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the whole-process people's democracy has realized the creative transformation and innovative development of the ancient people-oriented politics, inherited the people-oriented purpose of state power to govern for the people, overcame the institutional obstacle of the absence of the main body of the people, and realized the unity of traditional people-oriented politics and modern democratic politics.

　　The innovative dimension of whole-process people's democracy

　　General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that "the vitality of theory lies in innovation", and "we must be good at refining symbolic concepts, creating new concepts, new categories and new expressions that are easy to understand and accept by the international community, and guiding the international academic community to carry out research and discussion." "Whole-process people's democracy, as a democratic discourse designed by China's top-level design, is a concept of Chinese democracy launched at a time when the Western liberal democratic model is encountering a structural crisis, and this concept is undoubtedly iconic and innovative, and can guide the research and discussion of the international community.

　　In December 2021, the Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China released a white paper entitled "Democracy in China", which states: "China's democracy is a people's democracy, and the people are the masters of the country. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party has deepened its understanding of the laws governing the development of China's democratic politics, put forward the major concept of whole-process people's democracy and vigorously promoted it, and further transformed democratic values and concepts into scientific and effective institutional arrangements and concrete and realistic democratic practices." Whole-process people's democracy confronts the hypocrisy and crisis of liberal democracy. Liberal democracy emphasizes the elective, procedural, indirect, and limited nature of democracy, while whole-process people's democracy emphasizes that democracy is the unity of process democracy and outcome democracy, procedural democracy and substantive democracy, direct democracy and indirect democracy, people's democracy and the will of the state. In view of the performative nature of liberal democracy, whole-process people's democracy emphasizes that democracy is not an ornament, not for decoration, but to solve the problems that the people need to solve.

　　Because liberal democracy is a democracy that represents the interests of capital, it puts freedom above equality and competition over governance, which leads to the four major diseases that Płoski describes: first, it cannot solve the problem of inequality in the socio-economic field; second, it does not provide what people perceive as effective political participation; Third, it can't guarantee that the government will do what it should do, or that it won't do what it shouldn't; Fourth, it cannot find a balance between order and non-intervention. Whole-process people's democracy overcomes the bourgeois limitations of liberal democracy, which can not only solve the problem of inequality in the social and economic fields, but also provide a channel for the people to participate in the whole process. Even if power is supervised by the people, it does not constrain the ability of power to govern the country; It not only gives the market economy full freedom, but also provides an effective institutional means for the state to intervene in the economy and maintain order. It not only has distinctive Chinese characteristics, but also embodies the essential requirements of socialism, is highly innovative, and is a new form of socialist political civilization that is different from Western liberal democracy for reference.

　　(Source: Beijing Daily, May 6, 2024, page 11; Author: Zhang Fei'an, associate professor at the School of Marxism, Chinese University, researcher at the Xi Jinping Institute of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, Chinese University; Image source: original article with pictures; Original title: Constructing a Model of Chinese Discourse: Understanding "Whole-process People's Democracy" from the Perspective of the Construction of Local Discourse in Chinese Philosophy and Social Sciences)