Looking at America's Presidential Race, Chinese People Will Be Cooler-Headed, Rational

On September 6, Obama was officially chosen by the Democratic Party as their presidential candidate and the curtain was raised on America’s presidential election. The American president is the world’s most vocal and closely watched leader. Americans themselves view him as the leader of the free world; he does represent the Western model of authority.

Looking at this from a rational perspective, America’s political system has been a great success. Without it, the U.S. would not be as powerful and prosperous. But the American political system has come out of history; it was “planned” to break the historical mold. History is woven into everything. The American political system is the U.S.’ historical gain, not a “blessing” bestowed by God.

Up to this point, the nature of America’s two-party system has not been a small matter. It takes up a lot of energy and doesn’t provide many benefits. All governments must adapt to a changing world, but the U.S. system of self-reform is weak. In a meaningless discussion, the two parties attempt to ingratiate themselves with the voters, saying that rapid changes in the global system threaten America.

The American president has a great deal of influence in China. To tell the truth, many Chinese are envious of the American voter and the U.S. political system. More than a few people correlate this system and the nation’s prosperity and way of life, unable to differentiate them. The American system may have problems, but to call it “broken”? That is not something that many Chinese would say.

At the same time, Chinese society blindly admired this American system during the early stages of opening and reform. Envy begets envy, but Chinese people now realize that their country is not the same as America, and they don’t know if they can draw lessons from the U.S. to apply to China. This is why over the past 29 years the Chinese have observed the rest of the world’s problems with realizing democracy, and as China has begun to develop rapidly over the past few years, many believe that “taking its own route” is the best approach.

Not many Chinese know this reality, but there are many colorful discussions on the Internet about the merits of an American-style election. Their voice is very loud and can greatly exaggerate public opinion. This is regrettable, because it isn’t real.

A Global Times survey on public sentiment in many Chinese cities showed that many people support the idea of “China going its own way.” Aside from what those say on the Internet, in reality very few expect China to go the way of Western politics. They see China doing what works, but this is their opinion, not official policy.

America has many values that China should study; this is a common understanding. The real situation is there is not much resistance in China to studying what one should do and what one can easily do. But the difficulty is the high risk of the contents, and the Chinese are cautious to learn. For example, democratic elections have been in progress for years. Some involve fundamental systems, like two or multiparty systems, which are not even a part of China’s political framework.

The world has lots of good things, but not everything will be appropriate; Chinese people are gradually understanding this truth in the political sphere. Recognition of the political success of the U.S. requires Chinese self-confidence, to see that the problems of the U.S. can strengthen this confidence. For China to go its own way, on its own path of development, requires a higher level of self-confidence. The fact is the Chinese people have not yet gotten rid of their inferiority complex, but are more and more confident.