【正确答案】The process of democratization has made much headway in China, the world's most populous country with 900 million farmers. In some one million rural villages, residents have elected their favorite leaders to make up the villagers' committee. This election breeze, which originated a decade ago and has thus swept across the country's vast rural areas, has helped foster and enhance the consciousness of democracy of the vast number of Chinese farmers.
The practice of village committee elections shows that the majority of committee cadres directly elected by the farmers in accordance with the law are upright and capable, have a good style of administration, and know economics and management. They are leaders who can help their fellow villagers get on the road leading to a comfortable life, reach a moderate level of prosperity and build new socialist villages which are prosperous, democratic and cultured. Studies of the latest round of election indicate that the newly elected members of villagers' committees are better educated and younger in age: about 70% have received junior middle school education while some of them have even received a junior college or university education. Young people around the age of 30 make up 60% of the membership of the newly elected villagers' committees. The overall quality of the contingent of rural grassroots cadres has improved significantly.
A sense of democracy has indeed grown from the most elementary village-level election, and from the election of the people familiar to the farmer voters. In the course of election, the farmers have received actual democratic training from the process of registrations as voters, nominating candidates, pre-electing and casting votes. This process has also fostered their sense of democracy and law.
The Chinese government holds that it is the most extensive practice of socialist democracy to expand grassroots democracy, ensure the people their right in direct democratic election, and allow the citizens to manage their own affairs in accordance with the law and build a happy life. The government requires all urban and rural grass-roots organs of political power and grass-roots public self-governing organizations to perfect the democratic electoral system, separate administrative management from financial management, and let the general public participate in the discussion of and make decisions about grass-roots public and welfare concerns, as well as exercise democratic supervision over cadres.
The improvement on the process and procedure in the election of villagers' committee will not only reflect the common aspiration of China's hundreds of millions of farmers, but also meet China's need to facilitate her national drive for political restructuring and democratization. In the process of the country's sustained economic development and overall social progress, China's construction of democracy will be more extensive and meanwhile, its democratization process will speed up.