China’s Two Sessions and lessons for Africa

By Joseph Golwa

ONE of the forces shaking humanity today and has the potency of shaping and creating the new world order in the 21st Century is COVID-19. The G20 countries at their Saudi Arabia meeting in April acknowledged that the pandemic has exposed systemic weakness in global health systems, and showed vulnerabilities in the global community’s ability to prevent and respond to such threats.

For Africans, China’s response to COVID-19 has shown its proactiveness is worthy of emulation, and has demonstrated that it is indeed a friend. Besides, the pandemic has taught the world that humans are so closely connected that our hopes as one global community with a shared destiny is irreversible.

Many lessons, including leadership responsibility in the management of public health systems, have been learnt globally since the virus. A critical lesson, especially for democracies in Africa, is the institution of good governance necessary for managing crises for peace, unity, stability and progress.

THE secret behind China’s global achievements, including managing the pandemic, is its leadership and governance system – an effective system that has availed the Chinese citizenry opportunity to be responsive, hardworking, patriotic, disciplined, and easy to mobilise for positive endeavours.

The Two Sessions

The progress attained by societies in a democracy is usually a function of the careful, implementation of good policies. Governance or regime types determine and affect the nature of public policy processes – openness, flexibility, robustness, humanity, and inclusivity in policy making process. The kind of democratic governance that can facilitate this arrangement is one that allows the interests of every citizen to be fully and effectively represented. This unique arrangement in China’s democratic governance is the Two Sessions

In trying to understand the importance and relevance of representative governance (as expressed in the Two Sessions), we are reminded of of John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). This 19th century political thinker regarded representative democracy as necessary for progress. He judged representative democracy on the basis of how far it “promotes the good management of the affairs of the society”. Mill accepted that all citizens, regardless of their status, are equal. These ideas, which are true for any representative governance system when operated transparently, has found practical meaning and expression in China’s Two Sessions.

The Two Sessions is the annual coming together of the top advisory and legislative chambers. The advisory body is called Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), while the legislative chamber is China’s supreme state organ and legislative body – National People’s Congress (NPC). The two bodies operate jointly on a routine basis through standing committees, work reports of the government and or state councils. It is worthy of note that the CPPCC represents the organisational platform of the Chinese People’s Patriotic United Front. It serves as the fusion of the joint work of the Communist Party of China (CPC) with civil society groups (CBOS), political parties, people’s organisations, and patriotic personages with no party affiliation. It is far bigger than Nigerian joint sessions of the National Assembly  and far wider than Nigerian  inter party forum organised by  INEC or any other similar forum/platform under AU or ECOWAS. Even in these, party or other differences always manifest. The China version is a group of hundreds or thousands of groups harmoniously deciding on matters of national interest.

Their ability to subsume their ethnic, party, cultural, economic interests in peaceful pursuit of national interest also explains the effectiveness of the Two Sessions as a body that expresses and represents the essence of collective not individual interests. China’s ability to skilfully operate the Two sessions has succeeded in building a national consensus. Consensus and consensus building have remained the strongest pillar of China’s democratic governance, producing perhaps the world’s widest coalition and alliances in strong unity with the ruling CPC. In Nigeria, or other African countries, we do not have experiences of any ruling party successfully entering into such a wide coalition of alliances for this long, for purposes of effective governance. Instead, what appears in many African democracies is the “winner-takes-all syndrome”.

THIS unique system is a result of years of historical experiences; of hardship and revolutionary struggles. Many African countries had their independence on a platter of gold. This historical experience convinces the CPC to imbibe the philosophy that no one political tendency despite its sophistication could exclusively drive the political agenda of sustainable and inclusive development without the input of broad sections of the people. The Chinese chose a type of governance to reflect those experiences, namely socialism with Chinese characteristics. The system has forged a strong solidarity ideologically, politically and organisationally at the national level as well as reforms and policy of opening up to the world. The essence of the opening up is to build a community of shared future for mankind.

The success story of the Two Sessions can best be illustrated with a few examples of a legislation on good governance after its meeting in May. The approval, for instance, of China’s draft Civil Code is significant because it reflects the reality and social context of China, particularly the concern for internal peace, security and stability.

CHINA’S Civil Code places the Rule of Law in the statute book for the purpose of being justiciable and accessible. This is a historic  turning point for the people. In addition to considering strategies to critically revive the economy and fiscal reform, the Two Sessions also addressed China’s sustained determination on poverty alleviation and desire to lift the people out of poverty by 2021. Next year is a significant target for China because it will be the centenary of the founding of CPC. These policies and legislation coming from the Two Sessions are a reflection of good governance, giving China several Firsts – the first country to lift 800 million of 1.4 billion people from poverty.

Another First is its opening-up policy with a focus on building a community with a shared future for humanity. This is being achieved in practice through initiatives as FOCAC, person to person contact, and BRI, among others. By these policies almost every country is being positively affected, directly or indirectly by China. This makes China the only country to have a citizen and human security focused foreign policy in such a large dimension that is highly active and robust. China is also the First nation to produce a White Paper on COVID-19, detailing the history and responses, to guide further research and other future responses. Defence budget was also addressed with a 6.6 per cent increase to enable China properly fund the Armed Forces and their participation in global peace and security successfully.

There is the issue of national security legislation meant to improve the national security architecture to contain threats, such as is experienced in Hong Kong. The issue of threats in Hong Kong is a serious internal security challenge because it is a special administrative region of China, under the “one country, two systems” arrangement and not “dual sovereignties”. It is important that the Two Sessions addresses it as a critical internal security concern, as Hong Kong crisis holds the potency of becoming an epicentre for external interferences  in China’s  internal affairs, and a threat to national security. Addressing the Hong Kong crisis through legislation is a significant and important outcome from the Two Sessions.

Lessons from  the Two Sessions

• The art and practice of building broad based coalitions and political alliances, consensus and inclusiveness as a strong basis for stability and progress in governance.
• Integrating political coalition and understanding with emergent national political culture, to achieve multi-party cooperation and wide political consultation.
• Importance of building wide political consensus towards effective mobilisation and planning to achieve specific national goals. This is why it was easy for the people to be effectively mobilised during COVID-19.
• Institutionalisation of the process of consultation, coordination and cooperation leading to emergent political culture that evokes greater sense of patriotism and ownership of the political process.
• The credibility of the political leadership and of the system determines good governance and positive service delivery. This in turn makes commitment to adherence to the rule of law easy and possible.

Africa needs China’s  experience

Many African states at independence adopted hook-and-sinker Western governance models they didn’t understand. Hence, they operated them wrongly because they were strange and not yet adapted to their cultures and environments.

Indeed, it is not the type or model of governance that matters, but the people behind the system – their discipline, knowledge, understanding and patriotism. The Chinese governance system is working because it chose and is practising a system with Chinese characteristics fashioned after years of historical experiences. Africans should learn to construct governance systems and administrative platforms with their peculiar circumstances and characteristics.

AFRICAN nations must realise that the post-pandemic era will be a global society and a world responding to a new normal. Worse still, prior to COVID-19, many of these countries had socio-economic challenges, and are battling recession and poverty. The virus only became a situation of adding pepper to injury. The post-virus development challenges can be addressed by strong leadership and good governance. African governments must position themselves and take liberty of the philosophy of the Two Sessions as a unique strategy if our collective aspirations of  realising and making the AU agenda 2063 a reality.

The Two Sessions is an apt model of true representative democracy as conceptualised by Stuart Mill. It symbolises everything that meets the universal principles of democracy which are authority, rule of law, legitimacy to rule and choice. Since the effective legislation and policies of the Two Sessions have an added value and credibility to China’s governance system, it means its transparent, unique democracy and democratic governance is working well. It is worthy of emulation as it is affecting the world positively in the spirit of China’s philosophy of building a community with a shared future for mankind.  The essential ingredients or substances of the Two Sessions critical to stable democratic governance include multi-party cooperation, political consultation and inclusive political processes. Once these are put in practice any crises situation can be effectively managed.  This must be cherished always as a watchword for African governments. These are indeed principles that can serve as effective strategies in mobilising the people and resources to meet the developmental challenges of the post COVID-19 era. It is an era requiring that we practise inclusivity not exclusivity; by-partisan solidarity not bitter partisan acrimony or unnecessary multi-party competition and opposition; it will be a period requiring unity of purpose in articulating national goals, not bickering over personal or party interests at the expense of national interests and goals.

THUS, identifiable mecha-nism in the China – African relations essential for institutionalising and deepening these unique governance attribute must be put as priority in our mutual interest. Deliberate investment in education as a soft power tool, culture and technology must be taken seriously as contained in the BRI programme. Africans must note that China’s lessons are not repeatable but are significant lessons to emulate.

• Golwa, ex-director general of Institute for Peace & Conflict Resolution, is senior research fellow at Centre for China Studies in Abuja.