China’s state media is loving the US presidential election

Screenshot/FoxA handful of families controlling the election? Bitterness?Wonder what this op-ed is talking about… Donald Trump and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at the Fox Business Republican debate on January 14, 2016.

Perhaps you’re one of the millions of Americans slightly appalled by the tone of the US presidential election.

Perhaps petty name calling and jokes about the size of a candidates hands don’t really do it for you.

But it’s doing it for China’s state-controlled media, boy I’ll tell you what.

Right now, China is also in the midst of some really important political theater — the annual meeting of its National People’s Congress.

It’s the only time all of the country’s legislators get together to talk policy and pass laws, though it’s mostly just a chorus of ‘yes’ votes to whatever the Chinese Communist Party puts forth.

One 12-time legislator famously bragged that she’d never voted ‘no’ in her entire tenure on the Congress back in 2013.

So the chaos we’re seeing in the US election cycle? That would never happen in China — and China is gloating about that in its state media, while extolling the virtues of its own form of “democracy.”

Check out this segment of a piece in Xinhua News called ‘The West needs to discard 10 biases against China.’ The piece isn’t calling out our presidential candidates by name, but it doesn’t really have to (emphasis ours):

The essence of democracy is to be responsible for the people.

In some nations, the checks and balances of power have resulted in a political stalemate in which bitterness between parties has worsened and opposition is raised simply to disagree, rather than to discuss.

They have also seen a handful of families and hidden interests exercising influence on elections via their wealth. This kind of democracy can hardly lead to the sound governance badly needed by the people, though it may look “beautiful.”

From a realistic perspective, China’s democratic decision-making has displayed relatively high quality and efficiency.

As a multi-ethnic nation with a large population and territory, China values reaching consensus through broad consultation before taking measures.

The formulation of the 13th five-year plan for the national economy and social development is exemplary of this effort.

It took about nine months for a team formed by the Communist Party of China (CPC) to draft the plan’s proposal, which marks priorities for national development from 2016 to 2020.

Nine months to plan the next five years — that’s all it takes in a country where everyone agrees on everything.

Doesn’t that sound nice?