With the energetic assistance and support from the state
and the more-developed areas, the ethnic autonomous areas have fully exploited
their own advantages and maintained a sound situation featured by economic
growth, political stability, social progress and harmony between ethnic groups.
From 1994 to 2003, the GDP of the ethnic autonomous areas grew by an annual
average of 9.87 percent, which was nearly one percentage point higher than the
national average. In 1994, the per-capita GDP of these areas was equivalent to
63.5 percent of the national per-capita figure; in 2003, it rose to 66.5
percent. Also in 2003, the local revenue of the ethnic autonomous areas reached
67.4 billion yuan, 3.3 times that of 1994. In the same year, the per-capita GDP
in Tibet was 6,871 yuan, equivalent to 75.5 percent of the national per-capita
average; and the per-capita GDP in Xinjiang was 9,700 yuan, equivalent to 106.6
percent of the national per-capita average.
The successful implementation of the system of regional
autonomy for ethnic minorities has enabled the ethnic minorities to manage their
own affairs in accordance with the law and participate in the democratic
management of state and social affairs. It has also ensured that all ethnic
groups in China, whether their populations are big or small, enjoy equal
economic, political, social and cultural rights and work together to safeguard
national unity and national solidarity and fight against any attempt to split
the country and destroy national solidarity, thus form among them harmonious
relations characterized by mutual support, mutual help, striving in unison and
common prosperity.
VI. Grassroots Democracy in
Urban and Rural Areas
Expanding the scope of grassroots democracy is an
inevitable trend and the important base for the improvement and development of
political democracy with Chinese characteristics. Along with China's development
and progress, the scope of grassroots democracy in urban and rural areas has
been expanding continuously, with more channels for citizens' orderly political
participation and ever-increasing ways to realize democracy.
China has now established a grassroots democratic
self-government system, which mainly includes the rural villagers' committee,
urban neighborhood committee and the conference of workers and staff in
enterprises. In these grassroots mass organizations of self-government in urban
and rural areas, the Chinese people directly exercise their legal rights of
democratic election, democratic decision-making, democratic management and
democratic supervision, so that they can manage the public affairs and welfare
undertakings of their grassroots organizations and communities by themselves.
This has become the most direct and broadest practice of democracy in China
today.
(1) Building of Grassroots Political Democracy in Rural
Areas
Among China's population of 1.3 billion, over 800
million are rural residents. So, it is an issue of great importance in China's
building of political democracy to expand and develop rural grassroots
democracy, so that the farmers can fully exercise their democratic rights as
real masters in their villages. After years of exploration and practice, the CPC
has led the hundreds of millions of Chinese farmers to find, in view of China's
realities, an appropriate way to promote the building of grassroots political
democracy in rural areas - villagers' self-government.
Self-government by villagers is a basic system by which
the broad masses of the rural people directly exercise their democratic rights
to run their own affairs in accordance with the law and carry out
self-administration, self-education and self-service. Burgeoning in the early
1980s, developed in the 1980s and popularized in the 1990s, this system has
become an effective way to develop grassroots democracy and improve the level of
governance in rural China.
The Chinese Constitution prescribes the legal status of
the villagers' committee as a mass organization of rural grassroots
self-government. The Law of the People's Republic of China on Organization of
the Villagers' Committee expressly specifies the nature, functions, procedures
of establishment, term of service and other issues related to villagers'
committees to ensure the healthy development of grassroots democratic
self-government in rural areas. The implementing rules of the Law on
Organization of the Villagers' Committees and the measures of election of
villagers' committees have been enacted or revised in 31 provinces, autonomous
regions and municipalities directly under the central government on the mainland
of China, which provides a more specific legal guarantee for the villagers'
self-government.
Democratic election, democratic decision-making,
democratic management and democratic supervision are the major contents of
villagers' self-government.
- Democratic election. Villagers can directly elect or
dismiss members of the villagers' committees according to the Constitution and
the Law on Organization of the Villagers' Committee. A villagers' committee is
composed of three to seven members, including the chairperson and
vice-chairpersons. Each committee serves a term of three years. In the process
of election, the candidates of the committee members are nominated and voted for
directly by the villagers, and the election results are declared on the spot to
ensure that the election is just, open and fair. The villagers are enthusiastic
about these elections and, according to incomplete statistics, the average
participation rate in such elections is above 80 percent in rural China, with
some places even boasting over 90 percent. By the end of 2004, some 644,000
villagers' committees had been established throughout the country, with most of
the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central
government having elected their fifth or sixth committees.
