Zhang Si, a 24-year-old village assistant in Zhouliang Village, Baodi District in the northern port city of Tianjin, gathers opinions from villagers every day. She began her current job in September last year.

"The villagers tell me their opinions on village affairs, which will then be taken into consideration when important decisions are being made," Zhang told Beijing Review.

In every village of Zhouliang Township, there is a village assistant responsible for communicating the villagers' demands to the villagers' committees. In Baodi District, a consultative democratic system has been an important way in making decisions.

Villagers' voices

"In 2013, several villagers made a proposal to village representatives to transfer their land, so that they could be freed from farm work and find jobs in cities," said Li Guang'en, Party chief of Zhouliang Village. "The representatives raised the proposal to the Villagers' Committee and the village's CPC committee. The two committees then convened a meeting of villagers, over half of whom disagreed with their proposal," said Li.

China's rural land is leased from the state by farmers rather than owned outright. However, as the land was divided into small plots, productivity was low.

In order to increase production and improve efficiency, the country introduced a land transfer policy in 2004, which stipulated that farmers could rent their land to other farmers or companies while reserving their rights to contract the land.

"Land transfer is often difficult to carry out as most farmers regard land to be vital for their sustenance," Li explained.

"Village representatives and the elderly of the village—mostly Party members, retired teachers, veterans and government officials—explained to those who were reluctant to transfer their land how the transfer would increase their income, as they could be freed from farm work and find jobs in nearby cities which promised a stable monthly salary. In the meantime, they would be paid yearly rent fees for their land. Furthermore, the contract for transfer is renewed every three years. If farmers don't want to rent their land out again after three years, they can choose not to renew the contract," said Li.

Three meetings attended by members of the two committees, representatives and the elderly were held. They debated the proposal fiercely, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the transfer, and consensus was finally reached to transfer the land at the third meeting. All the attendees agreed to the transfer and signed their names and pressed their fingerprints on an opinion poll sheet.

In Zhouliang Village, almost every decision is made by holding meetings to solicit opinions from villagers and cast a vote to make decisions.

"In the past, village representatives would attend a meeting to make decisions for villagers without asking their opinions. The decision would be met with discontent or even opposition from the villagers," Li told Beijing Review.

"Through democratic consultation, the public can have an opportunity to discuss and decide the major affairs of theirs. Everybody's opinion is taken into consideration," Li added.

In addition to important events such as land transfer, smaller affairs are also solved through such consultations in Baodi District.

For example, Dami Village planned to build a road through the village last October. However, some old trees belonging to some villagers lay where the road had been proposed, and so they had to be cut down. The villagers who owned the trees did not want their trees to be cut down.

The two committees of the village and village representatives held a joint meeting to discuss how to deal with the trees. After several meetings, they agreed to move the trees to the northwest part of the village. The villagers' interests were taken care of while the road was also built.

From January to April 2014, 804 consultation meetings were held in all the 765 villages of the district. Nearly 1,500 topics were discussed and passed, covering road construction, projects to improve residential surroundings and construction of cultural activity centers. As of last May, 179 proposals had been implemented. No complaints from the public were filed to the government concerning the agreed-on proposals.

"We would not make decisions without consulting the public," said Yin Qi, Secretary of the CPC Commission for Discipline Inspection of Baodi.

Baodi is not alone in carrying out democratic consultations. This form of democracy has been practised in many areas across China.

Prior to Baodi, Xinhe Township of Wenling in east China's Zhejiang Province started holding similar consultations in 1999. Today, this form of democracy has been used to make decisions in a multitude areas concerning public interest, from budget plans to local construction projects.

For example, in Xinhe Township, village representatives, deputies to the township people's congress, representatives from all walks of life get together with government officials and hold discussions at the beginning of every year in which some key local government departments present their budget plans and invite opinions and comment. At the meeting, the participants bring attention to items they regard to be inappropriate or unnecessary and then hold discussion till they can come up with consensus to modify the plan. Then the local people's congress will examine and pass the modified budget plan and the public will then supervise its implementation.

Substantial adjustments have been made to the government's fiscal budget plan thanks to these consultations. For example, in Zeguo Township of Wenling, eight items of fiscal spending were added, which involved 18.75 million yuan ($3 million) and seven items were taken out, totaling savings of 54.7 million yuan ($8.7 million).

"Democratic consultations have provided ordinary people like me with a platform to express our opinions on government decisions," said 58-year-old Wu Xiaoju.

The formation of the fiscal budget through democratic consultation started in 2005 in Zeguo and Xinhe. It has involved the common folks in the process of formulating government budget plans. By 2010, the practice had expanded to involve all Wenling's townships. Before 2005, the local budget used to be decided solely by government officials and deputies to the local people's congress.

"Democratic consultations have made the local government's decisions more open and transparent," said Chen Yimin, a government official of Wenling.

"Deliberative democracy at the community-level represents an effective way to solve public affairs and resolve conflicts. It has changed the traditional practice of the government taking care of everything and provided a new way to manage public affairs," said Deng Hong, Director of the Institute of Sociology under the Academy of Social Sciences of east China's Jiangxi Province.

Future development

The importance of China's socialist deliberative democracy has been increasingly recognized by the top Chinese leadership in recent years.

The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee held in November 2013 stressed that democratic consultations should be carried out on major issues concerning social and economic development and people's interests before and during the process of decision-making.

Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, highlighted deliberative democracy as the country's chosen way to foster consensus among the people, while marking the 65th anniversary of China's national political advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, on September 21, 2014.

"Through a deliberative democratic system, such as political advisory bodies, the public are consulted when important state affairs are decided," Xi said. "Democracy is defined not only by people's right to vote in an election but also the right to participate in public affairs on a daily basis," he added.

The CPC Central Committee published a document proposing to promote deliberative democracy on February 9.

Though it has been practiced by China for decades, deliberative democracy needs to be strengthened as the country is in the decisive process of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the document said.

The document vowed to develop deliberative democracy both in non-communist parties, governments and the political consultative conference system and in grassroots-level organizations.

"In recent years, people are paying greater attention to their rights in areas such as education and medical care. Lack of effective channels for people at the community level to express their aspirations for social benefits will cause social problems," said Li Jinhe, a professor with the Central Institute of Socialism in Beijing.

"Deliberative democracy provides an effective method to resolve social tension through equal dialogue," Li Jinhe added.

Yan Mengwei, a professor with the School of Philosophy of Nankai University in Tianjin, said that in the people's congresses and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, citizens don't directly participate in the process, but elect or recommend representatives to express their opinions. In contrast, during democratic consultation, ordinary citizens can directly take part in decision-making.

Citizens can directly communicate with higher levels of government through letters or express their opinions, suggestions, complaints or demands through the media or online platforms, said Yan.

The key is to cultivate citizens' political awareness, said Ma Depu, Dean of the College of Politics and Public Administration of Tianjin Normal University. "The public should be encouraged to actively participate in public affairs. They should develop a habit of thinking from the perspective of public interests rather than their own," he said.