Clementine Liu

Democratizing the policy formation process

Clementine Liu

Whenever see the highly overloaded metropolitan public vehicles, buses and subways, I always wonder why Beijing buses are always so over-loaded, while bus in London, a city with almost same population and no less GDP output, can always offer seat for every passenger. Why this or that kind of inconvenience extensively existing in contemporary Chinese urban residents’ daily life, like pollution, like noise, traffic jam, distant neighbor relations, less public room and so on.

To Probe into the reason of reasons for this, my conclusion comes to the point of unscientific policy forming process. If the policy forming process to be scientific and yield the possibly best outcome, the first rule is, it must enable the effective engagement of all relevant parts. Our dominating top-down approach must be replaced by a more overall engagement and over scale viewpoints. Though the top-down approach is more efficient, for it eliminates the back and forth discussions rounds and mutes dissensions, it was proved soon by products quality to be ineffective. I can barely find no where in the world have the same building speed and repair frequency as Chinese cities: city road keeps being expanded inch by inch yearly, and water vessels underground being taken out and embedded again and again.

This top-down policy forming approach of China is a historical heritage. Countries with traditional democracy political systems, like the English-speaking nations UK and US, would naturally seek general public engagement in public policy forming, while former communist countries, where the regime enjoy a more unchallenged, less restrained authority, find increasingly necessity to reconsider their public policy forming process as entering into the more opened 21st century international society. Former eastern European communist countries, like Ukraine, launched a long-term government leading policy forming process improvement project on the millennium, or put in the term used in the relevant Ukraine governmental documents, to “democratize” the policy forming process. After half a decade’s theoretically analysis and seven years practical observation, the Ukraine government came to the conclusion that the democratic way of public forming is the most effective one and can yield the best outcome.

Recently, Chinese government made a new move by enabling general public to be invited to the policy forming discussion table. But the voice of the public, get no guarantee that it will be carefully listened and genuinely appreciated, government possess absolute power to decide whether to invite or dismiss the public, or take in or abandon their opinion. The changing of China’s soft powers, always left behind the speedy development of its hard power, economical development and social wealth accumulation. Chinese society has been pushed into an era of urbanization when the civilization transformation from an agricultural dominating one to a industrial dominating one. Landscape of China changed considerably in the past half century: trees used to grow around village beneath which grandmas telling grand children fairy stories in a country yard, now be turned into an Ikea table around which young couple eating dinner with their only child in a 16th floor apartment on Beijing’s fifth ring road. The urbanization movement is historical one, and its tangible products: hundreds of new cities and unprecedented metropolitans, will be a long-lasting landscape on the earth surface, like the Great Wall. Any deficiency of the policy on urbanization would be reflected in the landscape of the city and thereby recorded and memorized as long as the cities exist. The disappear of the Original Beijing city wall remind us Mao Zedong’s ignorance towards architect Liang Sicheng’s suggestion of rebuilding a new modern Beijing outside the old one and there fore better preserve the latter. Policies not only affect the happiness of ourselves, but will also decide the benefit and landscape of our descendents. It must be carefully pondered and sufficiently reasoned before put into practice. Building overnight is no longer myth in China, it is the normal speed. Everyday, thousands of new building finished across the country. We really have no time to wait for the changes of policy forming process slowly, naturally come into reality. We must shout out and call for an immediate acknowledge of the deficiency and an immediate change in action.

Every time I look into the over crowded bus or subway carriages, I keeps on recalling a famous picture taken in 1980s apartheid South Africa, which showed the fatigue, confused and impatient young black male passengers in a train carriage from Johannesburg to their black African homeland. The bus and subway carriage in Beijing is no less crowded, ordinary workers standing closely next to each other with chest against back. If general public truly are the owner of the country, as the Constitution defined, then its voice must be heard and daily suffering be taken care of. Otherwise, our government is not true to what they said on paper.