From Mao Zedong’s “People’s Democratic Dictatorship” to Xi Jinping’s “Whole Process People’s Democracy”: Common Threads and Profound Differences

Abstract

This article reconstructs the evolution of the concept of democracy in the People’s Republic of China by comparing Mao Zedong’s “New Democracy” and “People’s Democratic Dictatorship” with Xi Jinping’s recent formulation of “whole-process people’s democracy”. Through a historical-conceptual analysis, it highlights both continuities and discontinuities between the two approaches, showing how Chinese reflections on democracy represent an attempt to define an autonomous path to modernization and political legitimacy.