Making waves with trade deals worth billions of dollars during his first European tour, President Xi Jinping put up a strong defence of the monopoly of power by the CPC saying that China had settled for a one-party system after unsuccessful experiments with multi-party democracy.
China cannot copy the political system or development model of other countries “because it would not fit us and it might even lead to catastrophic consequences,” Xi said, addressing students of the College of Europe at Bruges in Belgium, winding up his week-long tour to the EU.
“The fruit may look the same, but the taste is quite different,” he said. The uniqueness of China’s cultural tradition, history and circumstances determines that China needs to follow a development path that suits its own reality, he said.
“In fact, we have found such a path and achieved success along this path,” he said making out a case for the one-party system in his country in a rare elaboration by a Chinese leader for an external audience.
He said after the 1911 revolution led by Sun Yat-sen overthrew the autocratic monarchy that had ruled China for several thousand years, China experimented with many systems. The Chinese people experimented with constitutional monarchy, imperial restoration, parliamentarianism, multi-party system and presidential Government, yet nothing really worked, he said.