Democracy is fundamentally about having a government that works in the interest of the public. In China, the decision making process is based directly on public surveys of what people want to see happening going forward.

Voting for what you perceive to be the biggest problems and what you want improved makes sense. Voting on how to solve these problems does not. Conflating these things is one of the fundamental problems in western implementation of democracy.

People know what their problems are and what they want improved. However, they’re generally not qualified to figure out solutions.

For example, I think my city has a big problem with traffic. However, I’m not a city planner, and I have no expertise in solving this problem. I don’t know whether it’s better to add more buses, build more subway lines, add LRT, or perhaps a combination of these options. Without having knowledge of the domain subject, I can’t meaningfully vote on what the solution to this problem would be. Yet, this is precisely what I’m expected to do when politicians float one solution or another.

I think the ideal system would be to vote on the problems, then have expert committees work on potential solutions. The committees would compile lists of pros and cons for each, then you’d have a second vote on what solution the majority prefers, and then to make it binding.

China doesn’t have a vote on what the solutions would be, but at least the solution is decided by experts and there is long term commitment to implementing it.