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China passes historic law, but much more needs to be done
2007-03-18
China has, with much fanfare, passed a law protecting the private sector, but the nation stands only at the beginning of a long road towards a truly open and marked-based society, analysts said. Even local academics admit that China needs to pass more laws to reform its economy and its political system, and that the legislature itself also needs a major revamp to become more efficient. "There is a disjunction between law and actual reality," Han Xu, a political scientist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the nation's top think tank, said after the National People's Congress' annual session ended Friday. "A law can promulgate a principle, but it takes time and additional rules to implement it in actual real life," he said. A case in point is the Property Law, which accords equal guarantees for private and state businesses, and could be of historical significance. Many observers have hailed the law as a giant leap in the direction of a fairer society, where companies do not get discriminated against because they happen to be funded out of private citizens' pockets. But others argue it is an example of a law that -- even after 13 years of debate and fine-tuning -- only lays out a framework, and that yet more legislation is needed to fill in the holes. "Fairness means equal opportunity, and in that respect, the government still has much work to do," said Yan Jirong, a professor at Peking University's School of Government. In particular, he said, China needs tougher rules governing monopolies, as large parts of the economy remain under government control, with state-owned enterprises reaping unfair profits because they face no competition. "Monopoly is like raising the barrier for entry into the market and excluding some people from sharing the benefits of reform. I think there's a need to let them get equal opportunity," Yan said. If economic legislation is incomplete in China, even more ground needs to covered in terms of laws governing the nation's social and political life, some scholars said. "Among laws that need to be passed, I'd like to see a law on the freedom of association," said Mao Shoulong, a professor of public administration at the People's University in Beijing. "The government is paying more attention to non-governmental organisations and other forms of association in civil society. There are some rules governing this, but as far as I know, no one has talked about an actual law." One problem is that the passage of efficient, intelligent laws are only possible if they are prepared by efficient, intelligent lawmakers. Hu Xingdou, an outspoken liberal economist at the Beijing Institute of Technology, argued China's nearly 3,000 lawmakers were, in many cases, not up to the job. "The vast majority of delegates haven't undergone any form of training prior to entering the legislature. They don't understand the issues they are supposed to debate," he said. "If the major issues are not decided in a scientific and democratic way, it will lead to a lot of loss and waste." Hu said the only solution would be a parliament more like the full-time legislatures seen in the developed world, rather than China's congress which meets only once a year generally for between eight and 12 days. "Parliament needs to be professionalised. We can't have legislators who do this as a sort of hobby. We also need more expertise. The representatives should include experts and scholars from all areas, and not just cadres." As for more dramatic reforms that open up society along a more Western-style democratic model, Premier Wen Jiabao made it clear in his traditional post-parliament press conference that people should not hold their breath. "For our socialism to go from being immature to mature, unperfected to perfected and undeveloped to developed, will take a very long time," Wen said.
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