The Chinese envy Obama-Romney duel
Beijing (AsiaNews) - In China, as in the rest of the world, the presidential elections in the United States and fight to the last vote between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is the main topic of conversation. The Chinese blogs that dodge censorship are filled with comments about the American democratic system where the Presidents are voted by large electorates in turn elected by the population. No one dares to make a comparison with China, but the comparison is stark: in just two days on the 18th Party Congress opens in Beijing that will launch the transition to the fifth generation. Hu Jintao, President and Secretary of the party, and Wen Jiabao, premier, will pass on the baton to Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang. There will also be a re-shuffling at the top of the Central Committee of the Politburo, but what strikes the Chinese is the fact that no one is speaking about any of this and that none of them have any say in the matter.
A Beijing University student bitterly admits: "The Party Congress is a meeting for the party; we are all just spectators. "
Chinese newspapers are filled with constant praise for economic performance achieved by the leadership over the past 10 years and some claimed "amendments" to the Chinese Constitution of which the contents are unknown, but it is certainly not the right to vote for 1.3 billion people.
In recent years the party has always excluded a Western-style democracy for China, considered corrupt and prone to capitalism. Even Wen Jiabao, who recently stressed the urgency of making "reforms", without ever defining the content, has lashed out at democracies.
Yet since the early 1990 's with attempts to found a democratic party, with the Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo--in prison for having praised democracy-and the experience of Charter 08, many dissidents and activists are asking for the voice of the people to be heard in policy choices and governance structures.
And even though the United States are seen as overly presumptuous and critical of China, the Chinese people appreciate their system of Government.
A survey by the Pew Global Attitude Project, carried out last month, shows that about half of the Chinese has a negative opinion toward the United States, but more than 50% enjoy their democratic system. Even more telling is this: in 2007, 36% of Chinese rejected American democracy; now there is only 29%.
Another signal that the leadership should take into account is that the millions of Chinese tourists who are visiting Taiwan, instead of spending time at karaoke, spend the evening following political debates on television, where politicians face each other in often very lively debates and where the public openly and at times harshly criticize them: all experiences never seen in China.
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