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• China has an authoritarian political system controlled by the Communist Party. Party committees formulate all major state policies before the government implements them. The Party dominates Chinese legislative bodies such as the National People's Congress (NPC), and fills all important government positions in executive and judicial institutions through an internal selection process. Party control extends throughout institutions of local government.

• In 2005, the central leadership called for strengthened controls over society to address mounting social unrest and to suppress dissent. Chinese authorities have ruled out building representative democratic institutions to address citizen complaints about corruption and abuse of power, and instead are recentralizing government posts into the hands of individual Party secretaries.

• The absence of popular and legal constraints to check the behavior of Party officials has led to widespread corruption and citizen anger. The Party has strengthened the role of internal responsibility systems to moderate official behavior, but these systems have provided some local Party officials with new incentives to conceal information and abuse their power.

• Since the 1980s, officials have introduced limited reforms to allow citizens to vote in village elections. While these reforms are a step forward in permitting citizen participation at the local level, the reforms are designed to strengthen Party governance and do not represent Party acceptance of representative government.

• Since the late 1990s, the Party has experimented with reforms that allow a limited degree of citizen participation in the selection of local Party cadres, but the Party retains tight control over the candidate pool and the selection process. Since 2000, Chinese authorities have experimented with the use of legislative hearings to solicit public views on pending legislation, and the NPC held its first controlled public hearing in September 2005.

• Since 2000, the central government has announced new transparency requirements for local governments. In March 2005, central authorities specifically required county and provincial governments to increase transparency and popular participation in government decisionmaking. Implementation of these "open government" requirements varies, but some local governments have taken steps toward greater transparency.

Introduction

China has an authoritarian political system controlled by the Communist Party. Party committees formulate all major state policies before the government implements them. The Party dominates Chinese legislative bodies such as the National People's Congress (NPC), and fills all important government positions in executive and judicial institutions by an internal selection process. The State Council's White Paper on "Building Political Democracy in China," issued in October 2005, says that:

Party committees serve as the leadership core over all [government and mass] organizations at the same level . . . and through Party committees and cadres in these organizations, ensure that the Party's policies are carried out. . . . Through legal procedures and democratic discussion, Party committees ensure that Party proposals become the will of the state and that candidates recommended by Party organizations become leaders in the institutions of state power.¹

Party control extends throughout institutions of local government. Party institutions control the selection of judges, and local Party committees influence which judges are posted to their localities.² Many local Party secretaries serve concurrently as head of the local people's congress (LPC).³ County and township Party secretaries also control LPC and village elections through the election leadership groups which they often head.⁴ The Party constitution charges delegates to Party congresses with selecting and controlling local Party committees,⁵ but, as a U.S. expert noted at a Commission roundtable, delegates "are generally uninformed as to the content of the Party congress or who they are to vote for until just before the congress meets."⁶

China's authoritarian one-party system does not comply with international human rights standards contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).⁷ Article 25 of the ICCPR requires that citizens be allowed to "take part in the conduct of political affairs" and "to vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections." Under General Comment 25 to the ICCPR, this language requires that:

• The right of persons to stand for election should not be limited unreasonably by requiring candidates to be members of parties or of specific parties;

• Party membership should not be a condition of eligibility to vote;

• It is implicit in Article 25 that [elected] representatives do in fact exercise governmental power and that they are accountable through the electoral process for their exercise of that power;

• An independent electoral authority should be established to supervise the electoral process and to ensure that it is conducted fairly, impartially, and in accordance with established laws which are compatible with the ICCPR;

• Freedom of expression, assembly, and association are essential conditions for the effective exercise of the right to vote and must be fully protected.

The absence of popular and legal constraints to check the behavior of Party officials has led to widespread corruption and citizen anger. Although Party policy documents assert that one-party control is necessary for social stability,⁸ senior Chinese officials have acknowledged that the inability of local Party cadres to respond to citizen grievances is contributing to rising social unrest.⁹ As one U.S. expert noted, "the power concentrated in the hands of the Party secretary and standing committee has led to corruption and other abuses of power that have fed social protests and a general decline in the legitimacy of the Party in recent years."¹⁰ For example, thousands of local Chinese officials have used their positions to acquire financial interests in local mines, hampering efforts to improve their safety [see Section V(c)--Protection of Internationally Recognized Labor Rights]. In some localities, police collude with criminal forces¹¹ [see Section V(b)--Rights of Criminal Suspects and Defendants--Public Security and Coercive Use of Police Power]. In June 2005, local officials hired armed thugs to break up a protest by farmers in Shengyou village, Hebei province, killing six villagers and wounding more than 100. Villagers had opposed local government efforts to seize their land and claimed that local officials had embezzled money that should have gone to the villagers.¹² Ministry of Public Security statistics show that incidents of "mass gatherings to disturb social order" rose by 13 percent from 2004 to 2005.¹³ Weak protection of labor rights and worker discontent over unpaid wages and benefits resulted in an increase in mass labor disputes from 1,482 in 1994 to 11,000 in 2003.¹⁴ Both collective and individual citizen petitions seeking official redress have increased steadily from 1993 to 2004.¹⁵

Party secretaries can block access to local information sources that might challenge their control,¹⁶ which stifles the role of the media as a check on the abuse of government power. In November 2005, Jilin provincial officials prevented the news media from reporting on an industrial accident and massive benzene leak on the Songhua River for more than a week. The delayed local government response impeded central government efforts to manage the crisis, caused panic among the citizens of Harbin city, and created a diplomatic incident with Russia¹⁷ [see Section V(f)--The Environment]. In June 2005, Hong Kong news media reported that Party propaganda officials issued a directive limiting publication of critical investigative reports by local news media through a requirement that state-run news media first clear the articles with the local Party committee.¹⁸ [See Section V(a)--Special Focus for 2006: Freedom of Expression.]

Chinese authorities have ruled out building representative democratic institutions to address citizen complaints about corruption and abuse of power,¹⁹ and are recentralizing government posts into the hands of individual Party secretaries. Officials are also relying on top-down personnel controls to address local governance problems,²⁰ but these measures have increased incentives for some local Party secretaries to conceal problems from their superiors, and thus risk compounding the issue.²¹ One Commission roundtable witness noted that "rural governance can only be improved within the current framework by strengthening the measures to monitor government by the local congress[es] and farmers' organizations," but that "Chinese rural governments have no impetus to initiate their own reform. . . ."²²

Stronger Party Controls

In 2005, Communist Party officials called for strengthened controls over society to address mounting social problems and suppress dissent. In October 2005, the Party Central Committee and State Council issued an opinion calling for strengthened controls over society, and the accompanying press statement set a 2006 goal to reduce the number of "mass incidents" that disturb public order, including strikes, marches, demonstrations, and collective petitions to government authorities.²³ In January 2005, Party leaders launched an "advanced education" campaign to strengthen Party organizations and to conduct political education for Party cadres. Officials expanded the campaign to rural areas in November 2005.²⁴ Party officials assert that this propaganda campaign will help reduce social unrest.²⁵ A December 2005 Party and State Council joint opinion called for strengthening village autonomous institutions (such as elected village committees), but "under village Party leadership."²⁶ Government officials tightened controls over the press and imposed new restrictions on the Internet [see Section V(a)--Special Focus for 2006: Freedom of Expression]. Authorities issued warnings about the activities of civil society organizations, and are preparing new measures to monitor and control them [see Section VII(a)--Development of Civil Society].

Party officials say that the Chinese government "will absolutely not imitate Western political models," and they are strengthening Communist consultative institutions instead of creating representative political bodies.²⁷ At the March 2005 meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Central Party School Vice President Li Junru contrasted the Chinese system of "elections plus consultation" with "discredited" Western liberal democratic models.²⁸ The CPPCC is a Party-led organization that includes Party members, representatives of Party mass organizations, and non-Party members that closely align themselves with Party goals, including members of the eight minor "democratic" parties permitted under Chinese law.²⁹ Li said, "[i]n order to address foreign and domestic challenges regarding the issue of democracy, particularly the challenge of the 'color revolutions,' the advantages of the CPPCC need to be brought into play more effectively."³⁰ In February 2006, Party authorities issued an opinion on strengthening the CPPCC.³¹ It described "Chinese socialist democracy" as including not only elections but also "political consultation" between CPPCC and Party officials before important policy decisions are made.³² It emphasized the role of the CPPCC in reflecting popular opinion and providing government and Party leaders with suggestions.³³ It also called for stronger guarantees that non-Party members may participate in consultations about government policies.³⁴ Foreign and Chinese news media have noted that Chinese government and Party officials see the CPPCC as a means to address mounting social unrest and popular grievances.³⁵

Party officials are recentralizing government posts into the hands of Party secretaries, reversing reforms from the late 1980s in which Party leaders took some steps toward separating government and Party roles.³⁶ Chinese authorities now encourage local Party secretaries to serve as the heads of local people's congresses (LPCs), and also encourage the same person to be village Party secretary and village committee head.³⁷ The Party's September 2004 "Decision on Strengthening the Party's Ruling Capacity" instructed officials to increase the number of dual Party-government appointments.³⁸ In 2005, Anhui provincial authorities expanded to 17 counties an experimental program that implements the 2004 Decision.³⁹ The Anhui program promotes having township Party secretaries serve concurrently as the head of township governments.⁴⁰ Reforms in individual townships require other government positions to be held by lower-ranking Party committee members.⁴¹ Local officials say that the reforms seek to reduce overlapping responsibilities between government and Party officials, thereby decreasing the size of government and the local tax burden. Chinese domestic media has raised concerns about the wisdom of concentrating power in the hands of a single Party official.⁴²

Chinese authorities increasingly use responsibility systems that, in the absence of popular and legal constraints on their power, provide incentives for local Party officials to conceal information and engage in illegal behavior. Responsibility systems link career rewards and sanctions to the success of local officials in meeting government and policy goals for social order, population planning, and other issues.⁴³ Because no meaningful popular participation constrains the behavior of local officials, responsibility systems create incentives for abuse of authority, as officials try to fulfill the goals set by their superiors. Such abuses include covering up mining accidents to meet safety goals [see Section V(c)--Protection of Internationally Recognized Labor Rights], coercing women to have abortions to meet population planning targets [see Section V(h)--Population Planning], and illegally detaining petitioners to meet social order objectives [see Section VII(c)--Access to Justice]. In July 2005, the State Council issued an opinion promoting the use of these top-down personnel systems.⁴⁴ Since that time, authorities have ordered responsibility systems to be implemented widely for officials in charge of enforcing intellectual property rights,⁴⁵ prohibiting illegal mining,⁴⁶ protecting the environment,⁴⁷ and supervising the judiciary [see Section VII(c)--Access to Justice]. In December 2005, central Party officials said that government and Party leaders at all levels should bear personal responsibility for maintaining social order.⁴⁸

Limited Public Participation Reforms

Since the 1980s, officials have introduced limited reforms to allow citizens to vote in village elections. While these reforms are a step forward in permitting citizen participation at the local level, the reforms are designed to strengthen Party governance and do not represent Party acceptance of representative government.⁴⁹ Since the 1990s, Chinese authorities have pursued other reforms to increase citizen political participation, including the use of public hearings, greater government transparency requirements, and citizen participation in Party elections.⁵⁰ As one U.S. expert noted at a Commission roundtable, Chinese leaders have introduced these reforms to

allay local discontent, to respond to growing demands for greater participation in politics, and to better monitor local agents of the state. . . . [They intend to] improve Party responsiveness both to reduce societal discontent and to preserve the Party's ruling position.⁵¹

These reforms attempt to "gain the sort of input that elections normally provide, but without introducing electoral democracy."⁵² In an October 2005 joint opinion, Party and State Council officials specified that they want to create a system in which "the Party leads, the government bears responsibility, society assists, and the people participate."⁵³

Since the late 1990s, the Party has experimented with reforms that allow a limited degree of citizen participation in the selection of local Party cadres, but the Party retains tight control over the candidate pool and the selection process. Party regulations adopted in 1995 and 2002 granted officials the discretion to permit public participation in nominations of government and Party leaders.⁵⁴ But the regulations warned that Party selection of nominees should not depend solely on the total number of votes received in the nomination process.⁵⁵ "Public nomination, direct election" experiments are currently under way in 217 counties in 13 provinces.⁵⁶ These experiments, however, grant citizens only a small role in the nomination of potential candidates, while allowing Party committees to strike names from the nominee lists, and giving Party members the final authority to choose officials.⁵⁷ For example, in February 2006 elections for the township Party committee in Longtoupu, Hunan province, Party members and non-Party citizen delegates first selected candidates from 16 nominees. The system weighted the selection process in favor of Party members, however, by restricting the proportion of citizen delegates to 30 percent (136) of the number of Party members (433). Party members then participated in a Party-only election to choose seven township committee members from the nine remaining candidates.⁵⁸

Since 2000, Chinese authorities have experimented with the use of hearings to solicit public views on pending legislation.⁵⁹ The National People's Congress held its first controlled public hearing in September 2005. It chose 20 people, including academics and migrant workers, from among nearly 5,000 applicants to offer opinions on a proposal to raise the minimum taxable income.⁶⁰ The 2002 Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Law generally requires authorities and developers to hold public hearings or use other means to solicit public and expert input when projects may have a significant environmental impact.⁶¹ The 2003 Administrative Licensing Law places similar requirements on government efforts to create administrative licensing schemes.⁶² National authorities at the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) and local authorities in cities such as Shenyang city in Liaoning province have adopted implementing measures for holding hearings under these two laws.⁶³ Environmental authorities and activists used public hearings in 2004 and 2005 to challenge some development projects.⁶⁴

Citizen efforts to use hearings to advocate for change have been hampered both by the opposition of some central government officials and by rules that do not require hearings until late in the regulatory drafting process. SEPA sponsored two environmental hearings in Beijing that received wide news media coverage and allowed the public to air concerns about the projects, but the hearings had limited impact on the projects. Some Western experts have noted that the hearings occurred well after the projects were under way.⁶⁵ Government authorities responded to public opposition to government plans to dam the Nujiang (Nu River) by temporarily halting the project, conducting a closed internal review, and banning further news media coverage of the topic⁶⁶ [see Section V(f)--The Environment--Public Participation in Environmental Protection]. Chinese officials have taken steps to curb SEPA's activism in the field of environmental protection. Soon after SEPA ordered the closure of 30 construction projects in early 2005 for failure to comply with EIA procedures, other central government officials overruled the decision.⁶⁷

The central government has also announced transparency requirements for local governments. In 2000, the Party and State Council issued a joint opinion directing township authorities to make information available to the public on government administration and local finances. The joint opinion also encouraged authorities at the county level and above to experiment with such policies.⁶⁸ A March 2005 opinion expanded these requirements, announced the principle that government information generally should be made public, placed specific requirements on county and provincial governments, and linked these steps to efforts to increase popular participation in supervising government decisions.⁶⁹ Neither opinion requires officials to make Party information public. Implementation of these "open government" requirements varies, but some local governments, including the cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou, have taken steps toward greater openness.⁷⁰

Local experiments with governance reform can result in positive changes when they are linked to substantive and independent citizen oversight. Officials in Wuyi county in Zhejiang province have allowed the creation of "village affairs supervision committees" with veto power over the financial decisions of the local Party branch and the village committee.⁷¹ Villagers select supervision committee members through direct election, and the committee may not include Party branch or village committee members. The reforms have helped check official corruption and have provided limited space for citizen political participation.⁷² Nonetheless, supervision committees in Wuyi remain dependent on the support of individual reform-minded Party cadres, and officials threatened by these reforms have resisted such efforts.⁷³

In December 2005, the government placed reform of laws governing village and residents' committees (VCs, RCs) on the national 2006 legislative plan.⁷⁴ In October 2005, provincial Ministry of Civil Affairs officials prepared draft proposals for reform of the Organic Law on Village Committees. The proposed changes would regularize and clarify campaign rules, allow village representative assemblies to choose the village election committee, and require townships to organize village recall elections if a village assembly fails to handle a recall.⁷⁵ These changes do not address issues such as township government and local Party control over VCs. Party regulations and directives require local Party branches to direct VC election work.⁷⁶ One local Party organization bureau official explained that this mandate requires the local Party secretary to head the election committee that is charged with supervising the elections; to organize Party members to serve on the election committee; to encourage Party members to run for the position of VC head; and to bar the registration of candidates who belong to unregistered religious groups, oppose population planning policies, or organize mass petitions.⁷⁷

Local Party and township government control over local elections undermines the protections granted to citizens by national law. In July 2005, residents of Taishi village, Guangdong province, launched a recall campaign pursuant to the provisions of Article 16 of the Organic Law on Village Committees that authorize such efforts.⁷⁸ The recall sought to remove the official serving as both local Party branch secretary and village committee head, whom they accused of misusing village revenue from land sales.⁷⁹ In September 2005, township and village officials suppressed the recall effort. They removed village financial documents from government offices, forced popularly elected members of the recall committee to resign, arrested and beat dozens of residents and activists, and barred reporters from entering the village.⁸⁰ In March 2006, a leader of the Taishi recall effort lost a township local people's congress election bid against a rival candidate supported by local officials. The defeated candidate and his supporters alleged that the rival candidate bought votes and that the election committee and local officials tampered with the ballots.⁸¹