CHINA’S MISSING RULE OF LAW

BEYOND THE LAW IN CHINA

Editorial Board

The Washington Post, November 25, 2012

THE LEADERS of China talk about corruption as if it were merely a failure of party discipline. The new general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, became the latest to suggest this in a speech delivered just after his rise to the top post on Nov. 17. “We must be vigilant,” Mr. Xi declared, warning that corruption threatens to corrode both the party and state.

He’s right about the threat. Corruption is rife in Chinese government, business and society, blossoming along with China’s remarkable economic growth. But Mr. Xi’s admonition will do nothing to stop corruption, and the reasons are not hard to find. China possesses a semblance of a legal system, with courts, lawyers and trials. But it has yet to create a genuine rule of law. The definition of rule of law is that no one — not even the party’s elite — is above the law. Yet in China today, the party stands beyond. It often uses the law to punish those who challenge its monopoly on power.

Two recent examples illuminate the party’s exalted position. The first was the downfall of Chongqing party chieftain Bo Xilai, a rising figure in the elite until it was revealed that his wife was involved in a murder scandal surrounding the death of a British businessman. Mr. Bo’s abuses shocked many Chinese when they were revealed, and served to underscore how the system works, enriching and protecting those in power. Mr. Bo lost his footing, but he was the exception rather than the rule. Mr. Xi seemed to acknowledge this in his speech, saying, “In recent years, there have been grave violations of disciplinary rules and laws within the party that have been extremely malign in nature and utterly destructive politically, shocking people to the core.”

(...) [article here]