Institutions of Democratic Governance

Chinese government authorities abruptly cancelled a planned international academic conference on constitutionalism and democracy that was to begin on May 19, according to reports by the Associated Press and South China Morning Post. Fordham University and the China University of Politics and Law jointly organized the three-day conference, entitled "Constitutionalism and Political Democratization in China - an International Conference." Some commentators speculate that the government cancelled the conference because it was scheduled too close to June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Sichuan officials recently announced a series of internal Party reforms, according to an April 20 Beijing News article. The reforms include introducing internally competitive elections for Party positions, reducing the number of leadership positions, and reforming the system used to evaluate Party officials. These reforms appear broadly consistent with recent official efforts to introduce a limited degree of popular participation in the selection of government and Party officials. While streamlining local bureaucracy, however, the changes also appear to concentrate power in the hands of a smaller number of people.

The China Youth Daily recently reported on a pilot plan for wide-ranging structural changes in the governing framework at the township level in seven Hubei counties. According to the report, the seven pilot projects were successful, and the Hubei provincial government now plans to extend the downsizing reforms throughout the province.

Three main topics will be the likely focus of attention during the annual plenary sessions of the National People's Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), according to this article in the the Chinese language press.

Chinese public security authorities have begun their annual crackdown on petitioners in Beijing as the annual National People’s Congress (NPC) plenary meeting approaches, according to news media sources. The NPC meeting begins March 5, and normally lasts about two weeks.

AFP reports that senior Party officials have called for vigilance against "hostile forces" before the NPC convenes. To prevent citizens from using the NPC meeting as an opportunity to present individual or collective grievances to top leaders, police have implemented heightened security measures in Beijing. Public security forces also continue to break up groups of demonstrating petitioners. During a meeting at the Communist Party School attended by top Chinese leaders, Radio Free Asia reports, plainclothes police removed ten petitioners who were calling for justice on a range of different issues.

In this article in the China Economic Times, commentator Wei Wenbiao notes that the National People’s Congress is debating the draft of a Civil Service Law. Wei also notes that Professor Qiang Ming'an of Beijing University suggested in mid-February 2005 that the law should include rules requiring that civil servants report their financial assets as well as their income. Chinese law has required that high-level cadres and officials report their income since at least 1995. Wei Wenbiao’s article says that existing income reporting rules leave assets unreported, and assets are the more opaque part of officials’ finances. Wei argues that government officials have privacy rights as citizens, but once they are in office their right to privacy is outweighed by the public’s right to clean government. Thus, officials should have no personal secrets, he says.

In a December 2004 article published in China’s Law and Life Magazine, reporter Chen Jiren discusses the establishment of a Constitution and Human Rights Committee by the All China Lawyer’s Association and ties it to a series of rule of law developments in China since 2002. According to a Beijing lawyer cited in the article, "constitutional litigation and human rights issues are not only sensitive topics in Chinese political life, but also a field that lawyers did not dare to touch." Consequently, although the Beijing Lawyers Association established a constitution and human rights committee in 2002, "some worried that establishing a similar committee in ACLA might be a political mistake."

As Chen reports, however, a series of events over the past three years has encouraged ACLA to establish a similar committee and to push more aggressively for the protection of constitutional rights.

The number and influence of independent organizations in rural China is increasing, posing a challenge to the government's political control, according to a number of recent scholarly articles. Responding to this phenomenon, the Chinese government has begun to promote the development of rural cooperatives to direct the organizational energy of China’s peasants into approved channels (and also to raise rural incomes).

A recent survey of rural Chinese organizations and popular attitudes revealed significant gaps in Party and government control over different types of rural organizations. Only about 22% of all organizations to which rural respondents belonged were formally registered.