Comparison of Modern (Modern) Political Systems between China and the West

Comparison of Modern (Modern) Political Systems between China and the West

The representative democratic political system in the modern sense in western countries has gone through nearly 300 years. The first two waves of the world democratic wave have promoted the maturity, stability and perfection of the democratic political system in western countries. First of all, "the long wave of democratization that began at the beginning of 19 century ended at 1920, which led to the victory of democracy in about 30 countries." In the 1920s and 1930s, due to the restoration of authoritarianism and the rise of fascism, democracy suffered a great blow, and a few countries stubbornly continued to advance on the road of getting rid of the turmoil. "The short wave of democratization after the Second World War has once again increased the number of democratic countries in the world to more than 30." [1] Through a series of social and political system reforms, representative democracy has been re-established and improved in western countries (France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Western Europe). Since then, the political systems of these countries have basically not changed much, and they have continued to this day. In the third wave of democratization, which began in Portugal, the speed of democratization is faster and the scale is far ahead of the two waves. The rapid development of democracy in such a short time is undoubtedly the most spectacular and important political change in human history. By studying the political system of western countries, we will have some enlightenment to the ongoing political system reform in China.

We mainly analyze the political system of western countries since the reconstruction of democratic system after World War II. Due to the different historical conditions in western countries, the democratic systems they have established are the same in core concepts and constitutional theory, but their specific modes of operation are different. Generally speaking, it can be divided into parliamentary system, presidential system and political system. For example, the United States is a typical presidential system and political system, while Britain, Germany and France (also semi-presidential systems and political systems) are parliamentary systems and political systems. Their political organizations are all guided by the idea of separation of powers. Parliament is responsible for legislation, supervising the government, and even overthrowing the government through a vote of no confidence (parliamentary countries). The government is responsible for the daily operation of the country, led by the prime minister, prime minister or president (the government of parliamentary countries is responsible for the lower house of parliament, while the presidential country is not, but the parliament has the power to impeach the president), and the judicial power is in the hands of the Supreme Court.

As we know, Britain established a constitutional monarchy through the Bill of Rights established by 1688 glorious revolution. For this historical reason, Britain has always kept a symbolic monarch as the head of state. In the long-term competition between parliament and kingship, British constitutionalism established "parliamentary sovereignty", which was strongly defended by Locke and fully expounded by Albert Venn Dicey in public law. It is a narrow sense of "people's sovereignty", which replaces direct democracy with representative system. The British Parliament consists of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, of which the House of Lords has no actual power. It only has the right to discuss the budget resolutions passed by the House of Commons, but it cannot veto or modify them. For other bills, the House of Lords has only the right of extension (up to one year). In the long historical process, the judicial nobility of the House of Lords sealed by the king (nominated by the Prime Minister) formed the highest judicial and appellate body in Britain, so the House of Lords became. However, its Chief Justice and Speaker of the House of Lords are also members of the government cabinet and "advance and retreat together" with the government. This is actually the compatibility rule in the British political system. The House of Commons holds the actual power, that is, the Prime Minister is the candidate of the political party that holds the majority of seats in parliamentary elections, and a considerable number of government cabinet members must be members of parliament, which is different from other western countries except Japan. At the same time, members are permanent, full-time and paid, and they specialize in performing their duties during their term of office. From the theoretical analysis, we can see that the separation of powers system in Britain is not in the strict sense, but after hundreds of years of struggle, adjustment and practice, according to British practice, the balance between various powers is basically guaranteed.

The current political system in France was established by Charles de Gaulle in 1958 through the establishment of the "Fifth Republic". Due to the painful lessons in French history-political turmoil, lack of continuity of policies and limited administrative power, the country can not effectively safeguard the interests of the country and the people in peacetime and wartime. De Gaulle tried his best to limit the power of the National Assembly, set up a Senate to contain the National Assembly, and at the same time reformed the presidential election, making it directly elected by the whole people, not responsible to the Parliament, and limiting the legislative power of the National Assembly. The Constitution clearly defines the legislative scope that requires the participation of the National Assembly. In order to prevent the heads of government from criticizing the situation of the majority party, France later amended the constitution and stipulated that the term of office of members of the National Assembly was changed from seven years to five years. Unlike Britain, its members are not allowed to serve in the government, that is, France implements the "incompatibility rule".

The United States has no feudal history of western European countries, and they have established a strict separation of powers. They learned from Roman consular system and British constitutional tradition, and established the world's first presidential system and regime based on "separation of powers" and Rousseau's "people's sovereignty". The government consists of a president elected by an electoral college; Congress is divided into two houses, and the Senate is distributed by state, with two in each state, and there is no *** 100 in the District of Columbia. The House of Representatives is distributed according to population, and the number of people over 500,000 is basically 1 House of Representatives seat (each state has at least 3 House of Representatives seats) and ***435. The Federal Supreme Court is the highest judicial organ and the highest appellate organ, with the power of judicial interpretation (determined by 1803 Marbury v. Madison). The Chief Justice holds office for life, and the President nominates Congress for discussion and approval. The three powers are staggered and balanced to achieve dynamic multi-directional balance. Both houses of Congress have legislative power, and the House of Representatives has the right to discuss the budget first. In order to check and balance the executive power of the president, Congress also has the impeachment power of the president; The United States implements the "incompatibility rule" and members are not allowed to serve in the government. At the same time, members enjoy annual salary, allowance and office expenses, are not arrested during the meeting, and are exempt from prosecution for speaking at the meeting. The president has veto power over bills passed by Congress (but it still has legal effect if passed by a two-thirds majority). The president has no right to dissolve Congress, and the president is not politically responsible to Congress. The Federal Supreme Court has the power to judicially review laws passed by Congress (to see if they are unconstitutional). Through these multiple checks and balances, we can effectively prevent the abuse of power and ensure the stability and efficiency of the government. At the same time, the US military system is directly led by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and separated from the government administrative system.

On the whole, these typical western countries have indeed developed representative democracy to a mature stage, but we should also see that because the bourgeois representative government represents the interests of the bourgeoisie to the greatest extent, its series of policies are the result of compromises and transactions of various interest groups, and the will of the lower class people cannot be reflected in many cases. The representativeness of parliamentarians and the democracy of elections need to be improved.

But the political system of western countries still has reference significance for us. As we all know, China implements the people's congress system of people's democratic dictatorship, the party-state system and the political organization system of combining deliberation with practice, which is related to the Paris Commune system and the Soviet system, and its theoretical basis is the theory of people's sovereignty and democratic centralism. The National People's Congress is the highest authority, which produces the the State Council, the Supreme Procuratorate and the Supreme Court. The National People's Congress is indirectly elected by provincial people's congresses, not directly elected by voters. The utopian color of direct democracy makes NPC system a symbolic political totem in essence, while the amateurish and non-permanent members of NPC actually make NPC a symbolic supreme authority. Mr. Ji Weidong called the transformation of the former Eastern bloc countries from party-state system to liberal constitutional system after 1990s "the restoration of constitutional rights". In recent years, with the gradual strengthening of the legislative role of the National People's Congress and the degree of specialization in legislative work (such as the voluminous draft of the Civil Code submitted to the National People's Congress for deliberation at the end of 2002, we have to have fundamental doubts about the short-term meeting system of the National People's Congress and the deliberation ability of non-professional NPC deputies), which also forces us to carry out reforms, and some people regard the professionalization of deputies as an effective way to restore constitutional rights. Hundreds of years of constitutional experience in western countries provide us with valuable reference.