Global Times Editorial Says China is World's Largest Democracy, Baidu Bans Forums on "Democracy"

On August 27, 2015, the state sponsored Global Times published an editorial entitled "When All is Said and Done, Which is the Largest Democratic Country" (究竟谁是最大的民主国家), by Han Zhen (韩震), Communist Party Secretary of the Beijing Foreign Languages University and Director of the Chinese Culture Export Coordination Center (中国文化走出去协同创新中心). Some excerpts: We must cast off Western linguistic manipulations and steer clear of the linguistic traps that they set. We must not only criticize the artificiality of Western democracy, we must also clarify the democratic characteristics of our own country. We must steadfastly seize the power to name what are democratic values, and fight for the power to control the discourse on democratic values. . . . . In the end, we must recognize that all kinds of democracy exist in the world, and that China's democracy is a true and effective form of democracy. From this we must state with firm conviction that it is China which is the largest dem