Development in China

            I have always been desiring to blog on China but never find a good opportunity. Sen, however, gives me a great chance. Sen is definitely a person who believes in process and exercise of freedom in addition to consequence, as he raises the distinction between “culmination outcomes” and “comprehensive outcomes”. To him, freedom of choice is very crucial. It is one thing to fast, but It is another to starve because the former has alternative, but the latter does not. Freedom itself has intrinsic value as argued in Chapter 1. Its instrumental value is what I am focusing on in this blog. There are 5 instrumental freedoms that Sen mentions: political freedom, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees, and protective securities. When Sen wrote the book, China has been in a good position of social opportunities and protective securities with the help of support-led process. After the Openness and Reform, economic facilities have been strengthened with growth-led process as China has become the second largest economy in the world. Yet, political freedoms, often going along with transparency guarantees, is in wild debate. Western politicians and academicians always criticize that China lacks human rights, civil rights, political freedom etc. Since political freedoms “refers to the opportunities that people have to determine who should govern and on what principles (legislature), and also include the possibility to scrutinize and criticize authorities (judiciary), to have freedom of political expression and an uncensored press (media), to enjoy the freedom to choose between different political parties (elections),” Sen’s idea is basically composed by four fields, including elections, legislature, judiciary, and media. I am going to examine how free China exactly is from four fields. The four arena is generally sufficient to guarantee political freedoms. An uncensored media could also guarantee transparency as a spectator.

            The elections in China is tricky. According to the Electoral Law of the National People's Congress and Local People's Congresses of the People's Republic of China, Chinese people have the right to vote and stand for election. But above the lowest level (district/county level), the election is often noncompetitive, even though the Electoral Law requires a 33% to 100% surplus of candidates of the positions to be elected at the lowest level, and a 20% to 50% at any other level, and usually the result of the elections could be predicted on all but the lowest level.

            The legislature in China, according to the 1982 State Constitution, is the National People’s Congress, where the power of all other institutions are vested. The State Council, which is the executive branch of China, is a subdivision of the National People’s Congress. The leaders of both institutions are part of the the Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee (PSC). The political power structure between legislative and executive branches of China is similar to that of a parliamentary system. The executive power is entrusted by the legislature. In contrast, a parliamentary system aims at providing a channel to balance multiple parties, whereas China has only one major party that occupies both institutions. China lacks political opposition and real institutional contestation, which are very important to the political freedoms.

            The power of the judiciary, mainly vested under the Central Politics and Law Commission, the Supreme People’s Court, and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, is endowed by the legislature. The judiciary, however, is de jure subordinated to the government. However, this subordination does not necessarily mean that the judiciary would protect high officials regardless of the consequences. Recent imprisonments of several senior officials suggest that sometimes the state judiciary does investigate certain high officials. But it is in fact facilitated by the Central Disciplinary Inspection Committee, the judicial branch of the Party. Whenever a party leader is put under examination, the Central Disciplinary Inspection Committee is the first institution to state its conviction under the Constitution of the Communist Party of China. Following this, the remaining institutions, i.e. the judicial branch of the government would look into the person and convict him/her based on the Constitution of the country. Fear has been created recently among all party and state leaders due to anti-corruption campaign, which has been the strongest historically. He certainly did not assume more power from his predecessor legally. Then his strong anti-corruption campaign can only be explained by the willingness of the party, and the permission of Xi Jinping, the party and state leader of China. However, no matter what regulations the party government imposes, the rule of law is hard to realize. The Chinese anti-corruption campaign is implemented based on self-examination, which may or may not exist. On the contrary, rule of law is an institutional checking that lasts forever. As long as the institutional structure of Chinese government does not change, it is almost impossible to have real “rule of law.”

            The media side seems to be not as bad, since the Chinese government does not ban foreign media, despite the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television censors all Chinese publishers, news agencies, and enterprises engaging radios, films and televisions in China. The domestic influence of New York Times, though inaccessible in China without a VPN, is actually as strong as their international influence.

            I know the blog is quite long, but I am trying to make the point that, despite the fact that China makes a phenomenal improvement over the past 40 years, there is a huge institutional problem that gives rise to a lack of political freedoms, which hinders China from becoming a fully developed country. Yet, any major institutional change comes with a price, especially since Chinese people suffer too much in the 20^th century. To be a developed country, it requires the cooperation both within Chinese people and with the help of outside forces.