12月6日，由中国人民大学重阳金融研究院（人大重阳）主办、中国人民大学中美人文交流研究中心承办的《十问美国民主》研究报告发布暨研讨会 在京举行，会上发布了《十问美国民主》研究报告 。前英国伦敦经济与商业政策署署长、人大重阳高级研究员罗思义（John Ross）以线上方式发言，以下为发言视频及中英文实录：
视频时长约5分钟，以下为发言中文版：
谢谢主办方邀请我发言！
欧洲语言中的“民主”一词源自 “demos（people）”和“kratos（rule）” 两个希腊单词。因此，“民主”一词的字面意思是“民治”。
民主问题与人权问题，即“人民的权利”息息相关。下文基于这一正确框架作出的分析显示，中国在人权和民主方面的理念和表现远优于西方。
与“民治”这一理念相反的是，西方（确切地说资本主义国家）是以是否拥有议会制和所谓的“分权制”等来定义民主。但这种做法是错误的。民主应是让“民治”落到实处。
这种注重形式而非结果的做法，很容易被证明是完全错误的。对于人类来说，最重要的以及最能证明“民治”是否落到实处的，是人民生活品质是否真正得到了提升。
为印证这一点，下面将以占世界人口五分之一的中国妇女和印度妇女的地位举例说明。那么事实究竟是怎样的呢?
印度女性预期寿命为71岁，中国女性为79.2岁——中国女性寿命比印度女性长8年。
中国女性识字率为95%，印度女性则为65%。
印度妇女死于分娩的风险是中国的8倍。
对任何正常人而言，在现实世界中，中国妇女的人权远远优于印度妇女——这对印度妇女来说非常不幸。
但美国依据自身的“民主”理念荒谬地宣称，印度妇女的人权远优于中国妇女,因为其生活在“议会制共和国”国家。
再以新冠疫情为例。在中国大陆，不到5000人死于新冠疫情；在美国，77.8万人死于新冠疫情。但中国人口是美国的四倍多。如果中国的人均死亡人数与美国相同，那么中国的死亡人数将是339万，而非不到5000。但美国宣称，美国的人权和民主好于中国。是谁给美国自信用一个不知所谓的推理，来证明这样一个违背所有事实的结论是正确的？
总之，自由民主制理论对民主的定义本末倒置。形式民主——刻板的、实际上并不存在的平等是最重要的，实质民主——现实生活则不那么重要，正如西方国家对印度妇女的生活品质劣于中国妇女视而不见，宣称印度妇女的人权优于中国妇女一样。
恰恰相反，奉行社会主义的中国懂得分清主次。所以，中国认为，最重要的是中国妇女应该多活8年，应该识字，在分娩时死亡的风险应该大大降低。也即是说，中国最在意的是中国民众是否得到了真正的实惠，生活品质是否真正得到了提升。而这正是“民治”和“人权”理念得到实践的体现。
中国将适用于中国妇女的同样原则推广到社会的各个方面。
中国已经使8.5亿人脱离了国际贫困线——中国减贫人口占同期全球减贫人口70%以上。
1949年的中国几乎是世界上最贫穷的国家，现在的中国按照本国标准已进入小康社会。此外，按照世界银行标准,中国将在两到三年内跻身高收入经济体。
次于实际结果——人民生活品质的改善程度的具体政治制度，是由各国的历史决定。正如习近平所说，鞋子合不合脚，自己穿了才知道。比如，中国当前的政治制度立足于中国共产党的领导作用和中国共产党全面领导的多党合作，而这种制度是中国所特有的。中国不会建议任何其他国家照搬这套制度。但实践证明，这双“鞋”很合中国的“脚”。
但中国所在意的是实现人民对美好生活的向往。也即是说，中国对民主的定义是人民当家作主，而人民当家作主才是人权得到进步的体现。中国的历史和现实社会政治发展印证了这一点。在关于民主的讨论当中,应注重实际结果——人民生活品质的改善程度，因为民主是为了让人民生活得更加幸福、更有尊严。
谢谢大家！
以下为发言英文版
罗思义（John Ross）
It is highly ironic that the Biden Administration would choose this particular time in history to gather together the “Western democracies” when almost all of those countries face serious crises placing into question the effectiveness of their own form of governance.All of these nations are facing serious questions of trust by their populations. Here in the United States, a large portion of the electorate is even convinced that the last presidential election was a total fraud.
Never before have these nations faced such a crisis of confidence among their own people. While the Covid epidemic and the measures required to deal with it have aggravated the situation, that crisis had been brewing for a very long time.The fundamental problem is that the political elites controlling the governments of the “Western democracies” have largely distanced themselves from the needs of the people. The growing disparity between rich and poor, continued racial discrimination, the neglect of the great pockets of poverty in the inner cities and in the countryside, have led to the sense among a large portion of the population that government has completely forgotten them. The great mass of people that violently broke into the U.S. Congress on January 6 was simply a reflection of the mood throughout the nation.
But the real objective of this gathering is to rally the forces of the Western alliance, the NATO countries, and their satraps to follow the US in a show of force in opposition to Russia and China, whom the Biden Administration have labeled “autocracies.” Yet both these countries are democracies, each with their own particular brand of democracy, which is largely determined by different historical and cultural circumstances than in the West.
China in particular has proven to have developed a particularly effective system of governance, one in which the people in the grass roots have the ability to raise issues which, if important, can then be then taken into the legislative discussion through their representatives on the NPC or the CPPCC, and much of this will be improved with the new Whole-Process People’s Democracy proposed by Xi Jinping. The workings of this particular system of governance has pulled over 800 million people out of poverty and helped to raise the nation to a position of moderate prosperity.
While the ruling Communist Party is directly focused on meeting the changing needs of the Chinese population, most Western parties, such as here in the United States, are more interested in meeting the needs of the corporations and the moneyed interests, including the military-industrial complex, who have helped finance the campaigns that brought them into power.If an “independent” were elected in the United States who really wanted to do some good for the people, but who opposed some of the prerogatives of the powers that be, that person would soon be branded, slandered, and perhaps thrown into jail on trumped-up charges, or worse. And I have friends who have personal experience in this respect. That’s not how the system was intended to operate by the Founding Fathers, but it is largely the way it now works with the growing powers of the financial and banking oligarchy.
Whether a particular form of governance or democracy is good or bad has to be decided on the sole criteria of the benefit it has provided for the common man. Were we to use that criteria, we would surely find that the popular support engendered by the policies of the Communist Party of China is far greater than the support engendered for either of our political parties, or for both of them together. But no one dares make that comparison, since the policy coming out of Washington today has little to do with “democracy” vs. “autocracy”, but is rather a raw political attempt to assert the continued domination of the ruling financial oligarchy centered in the major banks of London and New York, and backed up by the military alliance led by the United States. Any attempt by “developing countries” like China to call for a new, just, and equitable world order will be deemed by them to be a threat to their system and they will do whatever they can to prevent that from taking shape. And they foolishly believe that the rest of the world, or at least a large part of it, will support them in that endeavor.
But given the record of the “Western democracies” in places like Africa and Latin America as opposed to the record of China, it is doubtful that the “alliance of democracies” will become a rallying cry for any but those totally wedded to this failed system, or blackmailed by economic or military pressure from Washington to follow their lead. For most of the world, particularly in Africa, the record of China is already very clear, and the countries there and elsewhere are only waiting for the smoke from this obvious diversion to settle in order to continue along the path of development on which they have embarked upon together with the People’s Republic of China.
