People don't often get the same kind of shock twice on the same day from vastly different parts of the world. The shocks, on Friday last week, came in two statements about China's democracy.

I heard the first statement in the morning, from a member of the NPC (National People's Congress), the Chinese parliament. He said that where he comes from, "only poor villages have heated elections."

The second shock came from a research paper released by an Australian think tank, saying that a "democratic" (defined by the article as nationalist and populist) China could be a "great risk" to the Asia-Pacific.

The first shock is the important one. It came when I joined a young reporter in her conversation with an NPC deputy, a village chief from a back valley region of North China. He was talking about how he led his village, through a period of some 40 years, to rebuild itself into both an economic and environmental success.

"What about village democracy?" I couldn't help cutting in, curious about how a man could have managed to get re-elected time after time. "Have you met any challenge for any of the things you initiated?"

"Never," he was quick to answer. "There were some misgivings when we just began to divide the collective farm. But that almost immediately generated material benefits for the villagers to make them happy."

"Since then," he tried to speak in a softer tone as if in order not to appear boastful, "the record number of votes against that I've collected in one election is three, and that was some time ago. In the last few occasions, I carried the whole ballot."

"That simple?" I mumbled. Seeing me still not satisfied with his answer, he started to explain the local political pattern. "Where I'm from, it's usually the poor villages that have the more heated competition. The more problems, the more candidates although elections don't by themselves drive away problems.

"In our village, there's no competition because there's nothing to compete for. Whatever you want, we do it for you right away (before the election), and deliver it to you the best we can."

What kind of politics is this? I wondered. It seems to be more like the rule of a wise man in some ancient legend rather than modern democracy especially not in the institutional sense. But on a deeper level, there is a healthy process, not just in the interaction between the village chief and his constituency in times other than elections, but also in the man's moral commitment and practical expertise when he comes to deliver what he promises in a time of market economy.

However political scientists may define that process, it is helping people from a tradition of few religious institutions or any other alternatives build a community of economic success and cultural significance.

Many exemplary cases of reform, especially in the countryside, are more or less similar to the village chief's experience. On one level, there may hardly be a race for the election. On another level, the race is always on, in which a successful leadership is competing against itself, and even its past accomplishments.

This has helped me understand more easily why in some parts of the world, including the poor places that the village chief reported, heated elections can only be short passionate intervals of a lasting state of management failure, and even failure of government.

Just as the deputy indicated, there are always more things to do to make people's lives better. Any system should start doing them now rather than wait for a later time.

Email: younuo@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/06/2006 page4)