A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

The author is an honorary research fellow with the Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies and a research fellow with the China Institute, Fudan University

The annual sessions of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the top political advisory body, collectively known as the Two Sessions, have long been criticized in the self-proclaimed democratic Western world as putting on a show. However, the prophets of the Western world themselves have different views on democracy.

Renowned U.S. scholar Noam Chomsky said the novel coronavirus epidemic makes it very difficult for the West to return to the past, and so does their declining democracy. According to Francis Fukuyama, the author of , the state’s capacity and people’s trust in the government are more important than the type of the regime. Author Graham Allison, who coined the term Thucydides trap, called on the United States to “face ugly facts about our own failures” and learn from China.