GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS OF CHINA POLS 442/SISEA 449

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GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS OF CHINA POLS 442/SISEA
449

• Susan Whiting, Ph.D.
• Associate Professor, University of Washington,
  Seattle

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Introduction
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Introducing my current research (What I did on
my summer vacation)

• When Does Law Matter?
• Perspectives on Rule of Law in China

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Two Motivating Questions

• Why has an authoritarian regime led by the
  Chinese Communist Party promoted the rule of
  law?
• When an authoritarian regime does promote the
  rule-of-law, are citizens empowered?

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1 Why promote rule of law?

• Political legitimacy
• Provide rationale for supporting the regime based
  on predictable, transparent rules and procedures
  to govern society
• Social stability
• Channel and control expression of citizen
  grievances
• Policy implementation
• Better monitor the states own officials to
  elicit compliance with central policy
• Economic growth
• Promote investment by securing property rights
  and enforcing contracts
• International engagement
• Facilitate international engagement by aligning
  more closely with international discourse, norms
  and practices

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Why Promote Rule of Law?Social stability,
among other reasons
A protester is dragged away from an industrial
park, the site of a 2006 land dispute. (AP photo)
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Why Promote Rule of Law?Social stability,
among other reasons
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Promoting the Rule of Law

• Major investments by
• World Bank, United Nations, International NGOs
• Billions in the developing world, including
  China
• Chinese state

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Chinas Rule of Law InitiativePromoted at the
Highest Levels
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• 1996 CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin
• China is building a socialist rule of law state
• 1999 Constitutional amendment
• The Peoples Republic of China exercises the
  rule of law, building a socialist country
  governed according to law

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Chinas Rule of Law InitiativeExplosion of
new legislation

• Passage of laws by National Peoples Congress
• Across issue areas
• Land law, for example
• Land Management Law (1998, revised 2004)
• Rural Land Contracting Law (2002)
• Property Law (2007)
• Labor
• Environment

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Chinas Rule of Law Initiative Training of
legal professionals expanded
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Chinas Rule of Law Initiative Training of
legal professionals expanded
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Chinas Rule of Law Initiative Training of
legal professionals expanded

• Law graduates as of 2006
• Bachelors ? 186,000/year (5 of all graduates)
• Masters and Doctoral ? 19,000/year (9 of all)
• Law schools increased from 2 in 1978 to 640 now

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Chinas Rule of Law Initiative Growing legal
profession

• Lawyers
• Licensed, working in law firms full time
• 1983 8,600
• 2005 103,000
• 2009 150,000 licensed lawyers
• Notevery low pass rate on bar
• Highly concentrated in major cities

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Chinas Rule of Law Initiative Legal
profession in comparative context

• Speed of Chinas legal development impressive
• China vs. Korea
• Income per capita, 2002
• China US 960
• Korea US 11,280
• Lawyers per 10 thousand population, 2002
• China 1 9,510
• Korea 1 9,383
• Shanghai alone had more than 6,000 lawyers in 592
  law firms
• Nationwide, Korea had 6,273 lawyers in 258 law
  firms

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Chinas Rule of Law InitiativeLegal
professionals push boundaries

• Ideological tug-of-war
• Emerging cadre of public interest lawyers
• Push the boundaries of acceptable advocacy
• Farmers who lose their land
• Victims of pollution
• State-controlled bar
• Ministry of Justice administers bar exam,
  certifies lawyers, licenses firms annually

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Chinas Rule of Law InitiativeJudges and
courts improving
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• Better trained judges
• New court houses
• But, courts subordinate to local party-state
• No tenure for judges
• Local governments control funding
• Local party committee and party political-legal
  committee have influence over
• Court personnel
• Acceptance of cases
• Handling of cases

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Chinas Rule of Law InitiativeCitizen legal
consciousness promoted

• Active government promotion of laws through
  public media

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Two Motivating Questions

• Why promote rule of law?
• Multiple motivations for Chinas rule of law
  initiative
• Major investment in rule of law initiative by
  Chinese state
• Next, are citizens empowered by the rule of
  law?

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2 Are Citizens Empowered?

• To answer this question, case study of
  cotton-growing community in central China

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Are Citizens Empowered?What kind of legal issues
do they face?

• Land
• Most valuable asset of farm households
• Land disputesfocal problem of rural China
• Background
• Land in urban areas owned by state
• Land in rural areas owned by village collectives
• Rural land is used exclusively for agriculture
  and rural housing
• To develop industry or commercial real estate,
  land must be converted to state land first

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Are Citizens Empowered?What kind of legal issues
do they face?

• 14 of households in case study experienced land
  disputes
• Multiple types of land disputes

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Are Citizens Empowered?Land rights are
established in law

• Rights to 30-year land-use tenure for farmers
• Equal land rights for rural men and women
• No rights for farmers to sell land for
  non-agricultural uses
• Procedural guarantees in government land takings
  for non-agricultural uses
• Development of arable land for industrial parks,
  real estate subject to higher-level approval and
  urban planning processes
• Compensation standards set by state
• Rights for farmers to sue in court to enforce
  laws, with legal aidif needed

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Are Citizens Empowered?Citizens do learn about
their rights
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Are Citizens Empowered?Citizens do learn about
their rights
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Are Citizens Empowered?Obstacles to protecting
their rights

• Local officials have powerful incentives to
  violate farmers rights
• Rights to land
• Rights to compensation for land in context of
  government land takings
• Fiscal incentives
• Government sales of requisitioned
  farmlandbiggest source of government
  off-budget revenue
• 615 billion rmb, 3-4 of GDP (2004 estimate)
• Important and increasing role of land sales as a
  source of local finance
• Shades into corruption
• Career incentives
• Attracting investment big career booster
• Key to promotion for local officials
• Targets for attracting investment
• Reduce compensation, offer cheap land to lure
  investors

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Are citizens empowered? Sources of grievances
over land takings

• Illegal land takings
• Unapproved, no urban planning process
• Inadequate/unpaid compensation for land taken

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Are Citizens Empowered?Government taking of
farmers land 1

• 2006 14 mu (small) land taking for factory in
  industrial park
• Each level of local government kept 10s-100
  thousand RMB in revenue from land development
• Only 40/71 households received cash compensation
• Average household compensation 6,000 RMB 800
  US
• Per capita net income 4,000 RMB 5-600 US
• Only a few got jobs in new factory

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Are Citizens Empowered?Government taking of
farmers land 1

• Some households excluded
• From cash compensation
• From readjustment of remaining farmland
• From jobs
• Who is excluded?
• Especially married daughters and their families
  living in natal village
• Leads to lawsuits over land takings compensation

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Are Citizens Empowered? Possible channels for
dispute resolution
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• Direct negotiation
• Mediation
• Petition
• Arbitration
• Litigation venue where law likely to matter
  most
• Other
• Peoples Congress
• Media
• Protest/Demonstration
• Violence

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Are Citizens Empowered?Exercising the right to
sue in court

• Disposition of court in womans land claim
• Mixed picturesome women successful others not
• Example in case study
• Court refused to accept case
• Court acknowledged right of plaintiff to sue
• Court claimed inability to enforce any judgment
  finding for plaintiff
• Court told plaintiff to seek remedy through
  petitioning government directly

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Are Citizens Empowered? Handling citizen
grievances through legal channels

• Recall 26 households reported disputes over land
  takings compensation
• 80 reported great or very great impact on life
• 73 initiated some action in response

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Outcomes of legal challenges to land takings
compared to other land disputes
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Does Law Matter?

• Aspirationally, yes
• In least contentious cases, yes
• Most citizens
• Little contact with legal system
• Only 14 had land disputes
• Only 4 had land takings compensation disputes
• Reservoir of trust

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Does Law Matter?

• Rank Ordering of Trust in Local Government
  Agencies
• Court 11
• Mass Organizations 10
• Media 9
• Village Committee 8
• Legal Aid 7
• Lawyer 6
• County Government 5
• Township Government 4
• Township Justice Bureau 3
• Petition Office 2
• Police 1

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Does Law Matter?

• But, some citizens experience intense grievances
• Land takings compensation
• Actively use the legal system
• Hard to challenge interests of local governments
  in land development
• Hard to challenge power of village elites in
  distributing compensation

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Does Law Matter?

• State has promoted law to increase the regimes
  legitimacy and to improve governance
• Passed and popularized laws to protect rights
• Expanded courts and judiciary
• Developed legal profession
• Land rights, specifically
• Part of the legislative explosion (Fu 2009)
• Also a major source of rural unrest

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Conclusion

• There are divisions within state apparatus itself
  about how far law can go
• Rule by law
• Acknowledges the power of political eliteslike
  local officialsto override the courts
• Rule of law
• Recognizes law as the ultimate authority
• Subject of debate within China itself