Historical archive note: This report reconstructs a March 2012 news event from contemporaneous published sources and is being added to the FreeChina.live archive retrospectively.
BEIJING, March 12, 2012 — Nearly 94 percent of respondents in a survey published by the state-run Global Times said China needed further political, economic and social reforms, while a majority did not reject the idea of Western-style democracy, according to results released Monday.
The survey of 1,010 people in seven Chinese cities found that 15.7 percent said China should adopt Western-style democracy and believed such a system could be realized. Another 47.9 percent said they did not oppose the idea but considered it unrealistic under China’s circumstances.
Together, the two groups represented 63.6 percent of respondents. That figure should not be read as showing that 63.6 percent actively supported adoption of a Western democratic system: most respondents within that total expressed non-opposition while questioning whether such a system was feasible.
The poll also found that 93.9 percent of respondents believed China needed deeper reforms. Respondents identified entrenched or vested interests as a major obstacle to further political, economic and social change.
The findings were notable because they appeared in a publication affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party’s official media system at a time when debate over the pace and direction of political reform remained tightly constrained.
Contemporaneous reporting and later academic discussion cited the survey as evidence of broad public demand for reform while also showing uncertainty about whether institutional political change could be achieved.
Source note: Figures in this report are drawn from the March 2012 Global Times survey and contemporaneous reporting. FreeChina.live distinguishes between active support for Western-style democracy and respondents who said they did not oppose it but considered it unrealistic.