Most of the Western press have treated the document with some derision (ha!!! ha!!! the Chinese government claims it is a democracy, it lies ha!!! ha!!!) but it's missing some of the rather extraordinary things in there. First lets get rid of the "ha!! ha!! these are obviously people out of touch!!!" sentiment

Surprise, Surprise, China has problems

Despite the tremendous achievements scored in building a socialist political democracy, the CPC and the Chinese people are clearly aware of the many problems yet to be overcome. The major ones include: The democratic system is not yet perfect; the people's right to manage state and social affairs, economic and cultural undertakings as masters of the country in a socialist market economy are not yet fully realized; laws that have already been enacted are sometimes not fully observed or enforced, and violations of the law sometimes go unpunished; bureaucracy and corruption still exist and spread in some departments and localities; the mechanism of restraint and supervision over the use of power needs further improvement; the concept of democracy and legal awareness of the whole society needs to be further enhanced; and the political participation of citizens in an orderly way should be expanded. There is still a long way to go in China's building of political democracy, which will be a historical process of continuous improvement and development.

This isn't that new (it was copied from the human rights report about a year ago), but it is worth noting because it illustrates that the Communist Party isn't out of touch with reality. It also advances political freedom quite a bit. One of the problems with Soviet-style regimes is that it was impossible to admit that something was wrong. Since the state is perfect, if you point out a problem with the state then you must be a traitor.

The thing about this paragraph is that it gives implicit permission to point out problems with the China without being anti-government. After all since the Party line is that there are problems, if you point out that there are also problems then you are hardly being anti-government. If you start advocating "improvements in the mechanism of restraint and supervision over the use of power" then you are being a loyal Communist.

Of course the CPC is doing this to stay in power. They've looked at Russia and have come to the conclusion that a limited amount of dissent actually helps them to stay in power.

But none of this is new. Let's get to the new stuff.....

He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future.

Mao is dead, Sun Yat-Sen lives

The most really extraordinary thing about this document is that Mao is finally dead. It has a long overview of Chinese history and not once does it mention Mao Zedong, or Mao Zedong Thought. It also doesn't mention Deng Xiaoping of Jiang Zemin's "three representation." The most interesting thing about this lack of mention is that it does explicitly mention Sun Yat-Sen.

In this movement to save China from destruction, some of the elite turned their eyes to the West for a road that would save the country and the people. They started a bourgeois democratic revolution in China. The Revolution of 1911, led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, forerunner of the democratic revolution in China, brought to an end the autocratic monarchical system that had been in place for more than 2,000 years.

Now lets look at some detail about the new history that is the Party line. This is especially interesting if you compare it to the 1982 Premable to the PRC constitution. In the 1982 Preamble, you see

China is one of the countries with the longest histories in the world. The people of all nationalities in China have jointly created a splendid culture and have a glorious revolutionary tradition.

Now in this document you see....

China has a history of 5,000 years of civilization. Boasting a splendid civilization in the same league as those of ancient Egypt, India and Babylon, China has contributed greatly to the development and progress of mankind. The Chinese people are industrious, courageous and full of wisdom. It is generally acknowledged in the world that the Chinese nation has a long, uninterrupted history and a rich cultural heritage.

You see that this reading of history is profoundly more nationalistic and more positive toward traditional Chinese society.

Now here is the really eye-opener sentence......

In building socialist political democracy, China has always adhered to the basic principle that the Marxist theory of democracy be combined with the reality of China, borrowed from the useful achievements of the political civilization of mankind, including Western democracy, and assimilated the democratic elements of China's traditional culture and institutional civilization. Therefore, China's socialist political democracy shows distinctive Chinese characteristics.

You might miss it if you blank. But think about what that sentence just said. When is the last time you remember reading a Party document saying that it was a good thing to borrow from Western democracy? The fact that it has the tone "of course we've always done this" just highlights how new this paragraph is.

Again, this is implicit permission to talk about these things. If you are to argue now that China should institute a system of judicial review based on the United States then you can point to that sentence to say that the Party said this was alright.

In China, the publicly owned sector of the economy is the economic foundation of China's socialist system. In the primary stage of socialism, the state persists in the basic economic system with public ownership playing a dominant role and diverse forms of ownership developing side by side and the distribution system in which to each according to his work is predominant while other forms of distribution exist side by side. This ensures, from the perspective of economic foundation, that China's democracy will not be manipulated by capital; it is not a democracy for a small number of people, but one for the overwhelming majority of the people.

No privatization. Slap at Russia and the oligarchs.

Next paragraph goes into the "people's democratic dictatorship." This is a Maoist term which I could go into some detail about, the important thing here is that they have removed any element of class struggle.

Section 2 and 3. CPC wants to stay in charge......

Section 4. Blah.... Blah.... Whoa.....

The political advantages of the system of multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the CPC lie in the fact that it can both achieve wide democratic participation, pool the wisdom of the democratic parties, mass organizations and people of all walks of life and promote the scientific and democratic decision-making of the party in power and the governments at all levels, and realize centralization and unity and draw up unified plans with due consideration given to the interests of different sections of the people. Moreover, it can avoid both the problem of insufficient supervision common under one party rule, and political chaos and a lack of stability and unity that may be caused by the disputes and strife of several parties.

Whoa did you just see that......

Interesting. The CCP thinks one party states are a bad thing because there is insufficient supervision.

Section 7.

Respecting human rights. O.K. everyone, I know you want to laugh. Get it out of your system. I know... Ha.. Ha.. Chinese governments lies... Tiananmen... OK everyone feel better?

Now the interesting thing about this is that section again is what it does not mention. We just had three or four sections talking about how the political system of China is unique, Western democracy institutions don't work yadda yadda yadda. But you notice here that they don't attempt to argue that China should be subject to different human rights standards or that Western human rights standards are unsuitable for Chinese conditions.

In fact....

The Chinese government pays serious attention to the positive role played by international conventions on human rights in promoting human rights. To date, China has joined 21 international conventions on human rights, and has adopted a series of measures to fulfill its obligations as specified in those conventions. In October 1997, the Chinese government signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which was approved by the Standing Committee of the NPC in February 2001. The Chinese government submitted its first report on the implementation of the Covenant to the United Nations in 2003 as scheduled, and accepted the consideration and examination of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of the United Nations in April 2005. The Chinese government also signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in October 1998. At present, the Chinese government departments concerned are pressing on with their research and preparations, and when conditions are ripe, the State Council will submit a request to the Standing Committee of the NPC for examination and approval.

(more later)