Whenever there is a protest or even a whiff of dissent in China or anywhere else perceived as not conforming to the West’s democratic ideals, the Western media go into overdrive. Wave after wave of attacks are launched in an almost evangelical frenzy, reveling in their mission of supporting protesters and condemning the “regime” ruling over them.
You can easily detect Western hostility whenever the pejorative “regime” rather than “government” is the preferred terminology. It is also revealing that even where protests have been sparked by purely economic or social grievances, Western media invariably interpret them as “pro-democracy protests”.
Condemning “regimes” in faraway places is a soft target for Western media, as most Westerners have no idea what life there is like and therefore no means of filtering or evaluating the news they are fed. As the saying goes, “If you don’t go, you don’t know”. So when Western media reports on Hong Kong, for example, refer to the people being “crushed” or “despondent”, the tendency is for this to be believed.
It would be much more of a challenge for the Western media’s democracy crusade to focus not on what is happening on the other side of the world but on the situation nearer to home. Yet this is exactly what they should be doing. If they want distant countries to be sold the benefits of Western democracy, they need to focus their energies on making that product more fit for purpose.
A good starting point would be the UK, for the “mother of parliaments” is by no means a shining example to the rest of the world. Quite apart from there being a hereditary monarchy and unelected House of Lords, the elected House of Commons is not exactly a great role model for democracy. The “first past the post” system is based on 650 constituencies each electing one Member of Parliament. However, constituencies vary hugely in size, ranging from 108,000 to just 21,000 voters. So a voter in the smallest constituency has five times more influence than a voter in the largest.
The “first past the post” or “winner takes all” system is also the reason why British governments, even those with large majorities, are invariably elected despite only a minority of voters supporting them. Within each constituency, it is quite common for the winning candidate to attract less than 50 percent of the total votes. In the 2019 general election, this system led to the Conservative Party winning 56.2 percent of the seats despite winning only 43.6 percent of the votes. So the party that most people did not support formed a strong majority government, claiming a democratic mandate to implement policies which most people had voted against.
There is a saying in Britain that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Before criticizing undemocratic “regimes” elsewhere in the world, British commentators would do well to reflect on this.
It is a similar story in that other great champion of Western democracy, the United States, where the method of electing the president through the federal states is also “first past the post”. As with the UK, this can lead to some very undemocratic results. In 2016, for example, Donald Trump was elected president with just 46.1 percent of the popular vote, despite his opponent, Hillary Clinton receiving 48.2 percent.
Another distortion of democracy in the US is the disproportionate way in which the Senate is elected. All the states elect two senators, irrespective of their size. This means that California, with a population of 39 million, and Wyoming, with a population of just over half a million, both return two senators. This gives each Wyoming voter 78 times more influence than each voter in California.
As well as flaws in the voting systems of countries like the US and UK, there are other weaknesses which need addressing in those democracies before they are held up as templates of good government. Because politicians always have their eyes on winning the next election, long-term government planning can often take a back seat, with all the focus on short-term, popular targets which will attract votes.
Attracting votes may seem like a positive for democracy, with governments responding to the wishes of the people. However, the reality is that too often this translates into avoiding difficult decisions, promising either the unachievable or unaffordable, being economical with the truth, or pandering to populist sentiments stoked up by the worst elements of the media. Democracies can all too easily degenerate into populist vote-chasing, rather than doing the right thing.
In recent years, this has perhaps been best exemplified by notoriously hostile government policies toward immigrants and refugees in both the US and UK. Anti-immigrant hysteria, whipped up by the right-wing press and politicians, was also a major factor in the 2016 Brexit referendum. This acclaimed exercise in democracy resulted in the UK abandoning its huge economic, financial, social and political advantages of being a member of the European Union on a fleeting tide of xenophobic populism.
Closely associated with this populist characteristic of democracies is the sort of leaders who now appeal to the voting public. Before the arrival of television and celebrity culture, presidents and prime ministers tended to be serious-minded individuals, undistracted by the need to play to the gallery. William Gladstone, Clement Attlee, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt were all able to tackle the complexities of government without needing to expend an inordinate amount of time and energy brushing up their media presentation skills. How times have changed! It sometimes now seems that the electorate is swayed not by serious political debate but by which political leader has the greatest charisma, or is the most outrageous, or tells the best jokes. As one wit put it so succinctly, “The problem with political jokes is they get elected.”
Lack of continuity is another issue which afflicts democracies whenever there is a change in government. This can lead to regular flip-flopping on a range of important policies, often driven by ideological rather than pragmatic considerations. Healthcare in the US is a good example, with the Republican President Trump determined to undo the “Obamacare” system established by his Democrat predecessor. This sort of inconsistency makes it difficult to achieve steady progress toward agreed targets.
All these issues and more are ripe for debate and discussion in the West, but of course it’s much easier to brush the negatives under the carpet, pretend that Western democratic systems are perfect, and continue to attack those countries with different political histories and traditions. Greater objectivity and a little less arrogance would not be amiss here, especially in the UK and US. These Western democracies have their strengths but are by no means perfect. Before extolling their virtues to the rest of the world, they should at the very least acknowledge their considerable weaknesses. Even Winston Churchill was ambivalent on the subject. He famously said, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” Of course, he also commented, “Democracy is the worst form of government — except for all the others that have been tried.” Whatever the truth of these judgments, what is certain is that much needs to be done to improve Western democratic systems before holding them up as shining exemplars for the rest of the world to follow.
The author is a British historian and former principal of Sha Tin College, Hong Kong.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.