"We're also a Democracy"

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/world/asia/china-biden-democracy-summit.html

The NYT published an oddly low-key article this morning about Chinese "democracy." The article's authors are the Times' Shanghai and Beijing bureau chiefs, which made me wonder whether they had toned down their criticism of the anti-democratic Communist Party rule in China in order to keep their jobs as working journalists in China with access to government and party sources. The article included an insert entitled "Get Ready for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics," which also made me wonder what the Times is and is not willing or allowed to report on in China in order to cover the Olympics.

The article mentions China's recent publication of "an official position paper...released over the weekend titled 'China: Democracy That Works,'" though it provided no link to the document. A translation of that document, which I found online at the website of the People's Republic of China U.S. embassy, opens with the risible claim that "Democracy is...an ideal that has always been cherished by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese people." A page or two later we learn that "The fundamental nature of the state is defined by the people’s democratic dictatorship."

http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zgyw/202112/t20211204_10462468.htm