America’s Political Chaos Is Enviable When You Live in an Autocracy

Chinese social media is fascinated with Biden’s decision to step aside.

American democracy can be raucous, unpredictable, even chaotic—as evidenced by President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw his candidacy for president, throwing an already volatile election year into tumult. So it might surprise Americans to know that observers in China’s repressive autocracy find something in all of this to envy.

“The fact that unsuitable candidates can withdraw from the election shows that the American democratic system is still vibrant,” one commenter wrote on the Chinese social-media platform Weibo. The president’s decision “shows that his personal honor and disgrace are secondary to the future of the United States.” Another wrote that “regardless of the final election results, the country’s self-correction mechanism is still there, which is good.”

American politics, even at their most disruptive, have a responsive quality that is key to the country’s soft power—the je ne sais quoi of the U.S. democratic system that upholds American global influence. Chinese leaders know this. They routinely attack Western-style democracy as disorderly and ineffective compared with China’s supposedly stable, harmonious politics. But they have also co-opted the word democracy to lend legitimacy to their own system, which they call “whole-process people’s democracy.”

[Read: The dramatic contrast of Biden’s last act]

The Chinese foreign ministry declined to comment on the change of Democratic nominee for U.S. president, but the country’s propaganda machine has been quick to extract a cautionary tale about the American system. The state news agency Xinhua posted an article arguing that Biden’s decision “once again exposes the embarrassing reality of American politics” and “the chaos and nature of the American political party interests and money-driven elections.” A post on a social-media account linked to CCTV, a state-owned broadcaster, proclaimed, “Whether it is the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, the interests of the American people are not important at all.”

On social media, the Chinese people are debating the meaning of Biden’s withdrawal and the events that led to it just as Americans are. Some commenters echo their government’s skepticism—and for that matter, the view of many U.S. critics. Biden was forced to step aside, one opined on Weibo, because “the most important thing for the election is ‘bigwig support’ and financial support.”

But others share a different perception. In a country where the majority is excluded from an opaque political process that can’t even be discussed publicly without risk, the openness of the American presidential campaign is a topic of fascination. Biden’s withdrawal sparked a torrent of commentary about the various players, the party’s machinations, and the possible results. “Public opinion really works,” one Chinese poster exclaimed. “America’s democratic system is still valid,” wrote another. Biden’s exit reflected “a change in the will of the people,” still another argued, and “the American people’s desire for change and seeking a new atmosphere.”

The contrast with China’s system couldn’t be starker. Mao Zedong, the founder of the current Communist regime, clung to power for 27 years, until his death, even though his disastrous policies paralyzed the economy, sparked widespread violence, and killed tens of millions in a catastrophic famine. Others meet more nefarious ends. Last year, Qin Gang, then the foreign minister, vanished from public view, never to be heard from again, for some undisclosed offense. For a while, the Communist Party had presidents serve two five-year terms and then cede their position to newcomers. But the current leader, Xi Jinping, has done away with that practice. In 2018, he removed the term limit on the presidency from the constitution, as he apparently has no intention of going anywhere. How his successor will eventually be chosen remains a matter of speculation.

In such an environment, far less consequential acts than Biden’s withdrawal can score points for democratic transparency. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited China last year and created a social-media stir simply by dining with U.S. officials at a regular restaurant in Beijing’s fashionable Sanlitun neighborhood, in full view of the other patrons. The dishes on her table drew such great interest that the restaurant began offering them as the “God of Money Menu.” Similarly, when Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo visited Shanghai a year ago, a Chinese girl galloped over to her for a hug, and before long, videos of the encounter were all over the Chinese internet. Chinese leaders of such high rank generally live cloistered lives and rarely make unscripted public appearances, so hobnobbing with the locals attracts attention.

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Biden is not going to bring down the Chinese Communist Party on the strength of his example of democratic humility, and in China, as in the United States, debate continues to rage over whether the Democratic Party’s process of replacing him was truly democratic. But his willingness to cede the nomination, in response to the judgment of his party and its constituents, may be his last and most vivid statement to the people of China about how revolutionary American democracy can be in a world where leaders more often suppress public opinion than heed it.