China’s Communist Party’s mouthpiece has published a commentary that has jumped to the defence of the ability of a single-party system – as found on the mainland – to successfully tackle corruption, while citing both the United States and Singapore as examples.
It said serious corruption could exist where there was a multi-party political system, such as in the US, while the People’s Action Party, which has been Singapore’s ruling political party since 1959, was an example of a clean government.
The commentary said some people remained sceptical about whether the party would eventually win the battle against corruption among officials, while others believed graft in China would become ever more rampant and that the party was doomed to fail while it stuck to the mainland’s existing one-party rule.
“Is a multi-party system a panacea that effectively prevents corruption in a real sense?” said the article, in the People’s Daily on Tuesday.
It argued that cases of corruption could be seen from time to time in the US, in which politics was dominated by either the Democratic or Republican parties.
“It is by no means an isolated case to have a clean and pure society under a single-party system,” the article read.
“Singapore is a typical case in this regard. Under the one-party rule of the People’s Action Party over a long period, Singapore has managed to achieve an economic miracle and contain corruption at home, before winning a reputation for its clean government globally.”
The article – part of the party’s publicity campaign to commemorate of the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China on July 1 – concluded by saying there was no solid cause and effect between a one-party or multi-party system of rule and the emergence or containment of corruption. Either system could fail to get rid of corruption, it said.
Citing the well known remarks of China’s President Xi Jinping, stating that “no one but the wearer knows where the shoe pinches”, the article stressed that there should not be only one single method for successfully tackling corruption.
It said the political system of each different country should be decided by each nation’s particular needs and requirements.
