II. The Chinese People Have Gained
Extensive Political Rights
While struggling for the right to subsistence, the Chinese people have
waged a heroic struggle for democratic rights.
The people did not have any democratic rights to speak of in semi-feudal,
semi-colonial China. The Revolution of 1911 led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the
great forerunner of bourgeois-democratic revolution, overthrew the feudal
Qing Dynasty and gave rise to the Republic of China. He hoped to
establish a Western-style democratic system in China, but the fruits of
the revolution were snatched by Yuan Shikai, a feudal warlord. Then
parliament became a mere instrument for warlords in power struggle, and
there occurred the scandal of the "parliament of pigs" and bribery in
electing a president. His dream unfulfilled, Dr. Sun died in sorrow and
indignation, which found expression in his famous admonition: "The
revolution has not yet succeeded." Many Chinese had cherished illusions
about the US-supported Chiang Kai-shek government. However, Chiang turned
out to be just another warlord under whose fascist rule millions of
democracy-seeking people perished in bloody massacres. He adopted a
non-resistance policy towards the Japanese invasion while stepping up the
civil war, ignoring opposition from the Chinese Communists, patriots and
democrats from all walks of life and the broad masses of the people. He
launched the all-out civil war after the victory of the War of Resistance
Against Japan, again violating the ardent wish for peace, democracy and
reconstruction of the Communist Party, the democratic parties and the
people throughout China. Driven beyond the limits of forbearance, the
people rose up in arms and in the end toppled Chiang's reactionary rule.
Since the very day of its founding, the Communist Party of China has been
holding high the banner of democracy and human rights. It encouraged and
assisted Dr. Sun in reorganizing the Kuomintang, effected the cooperation
between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party and launched the Northern
Expedition against the reactionary rule of the warlords. After Chiang
Kai-shek betrayed the democratic revolution, the Party united all
patriots and democrats and led the people in a struggle against civil
war, hunger, autocracy and persecution. In the liberated areas it
established democratic governments, drew up laws which guaranteed the
people's democratic rights and resolutely implemented its own democratic
program. The democratic system in the liberated areas attracted numerous
patriotic and democratic fighters and became the hope of the entire
people. Under the Party's leadership, the Chinese people overthrew the
Kuomintang reactionaries' dictatorial rule and founded the democratic and
free People's Republic of China.
The Chinese people gained real democratic rights after the founding of
New China. In explicit terms the Constitution stipulates that all power
in the People's Republic of China belongs to the people. That the people
are masters of their own country is the essence of China's democratic
politics. By stating that the People's Republic of China is a socialist
state of the people's democratic dictatorship led by the working class
and based on the alliance of workers and peasants, the Constitution has
established the status of the workers, peasants and other working people
as masters of the country and thus invested the laboring people who were
at the bottom rung of the social ladder in old China with lawful
democratic rights. Equality of men and women, as provided by the
Constitution, has enabled women, who account for half of the Chinese
population, to gain the same rights as men in politics, economy, culture,
society and family life. The stipulation that all nationalities in China
are equal has ensured that all the nation's minority nationalities enjoy
equal democratic rights with the Han people.
To guarantee that the people are the real masters of the country with the
right to run the country's economic and social affairs, China has
adopted, in light of its actual conditions, the people's congresses as
the state's basic political system. Deputies to the people's congresses
at all levels are chosen through democratic elections. The Constitution
stipulates that all citizens of the People's Republic of China who have
reached the age of 18 have the right to vote and stand for election,
regardless of nationality, race, sex, occupation, family background,
religious belief, education, property status, or length of residence,
with the exception of persons deprived of their political rights by law.
Taking into consideration its vast territory, large population,
inconvenient transportation and relatively low economic and cultural
development, China has adopted an election system appropriate to its
actual conditions. That is, deputies to people's congresses at the county
level or below are elected directly, while those to people's congresses
above the county level are elected indirectly. This election system makes
it possible for the people to choose deputies whom they know and trust.
The election system has been improved in recent years on the basis of
past experience. For instance, more candidates are posted than the number
of deputies to be elected, instead of an equal number as before. The
right to vote has been widely exercised by the Chinese people. According
to statistics from the 1990 county- and township-level direct elections,
99.97 percent of the citizens at 18 years of age or above enjoyed the
right to vote. Generally speaking, upwards of 90 percent of the voters
participate in the elections held in the various provinces, autonomous
regions and municipalities. The most striking characteristic of China's
electoral system is that elections are not manipulated by money and that
deputies are not elected on the basis of boasting and empty promises but
according to their actual contributions to the country and society, their
attitude in serving the people and their close relations with the people.
It is clear from the election results that the elected are broadly
representative, that is, representative of people of all social strata
and all trades and professions. Of the 2,970 deputies to the Seventh
National People's Congress, 684, or 23 percent, are workers and farmers;
697, or 23.4 percent, are intellectuals; 733, or 24.7 percent, are
government functionaries; 540, or 18.2 percent, are democratic party
members and patriots with no party affiliations; 267, or 9 percent, are
from the People's Liberation Army; and 49, or 1.6 percent, are returned
overseas Chinese.
The National People's Congress is the supreme organ of state power. It
has legislative power. It elects or removes president and vice-president
of the People's Republic of China, chairman of the Central Military
Commission, president of the Supreme People's Court and
procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate; and appoints or
removes premier, vice-premiers, state councilors, ministers, ministers in
charge of commissions, auditor-general and secretary-general. All
administrative, judicial and procuratorial organs of the state are
created by the National People's Congress, responsible to it and
supervised by it. Following the principle of democratic centralism, the
National People's Congress adopts major policy decisions after full
airing of opinions; and once adopted, these policies are carried out in a
concerted effort. In this way, the People's Congress can not only
represent the people's common will but also become instrumental for the
people in running state, economic and social affairs. Coming from among
the people, the people's deputies are responsible to the people and
supervised by the people; their close contact with the masses and wide
knowledge of the actual situation enable them to fully reflect the
people's wishes, formulate laws suited to reality and supervise the work
of government organs.
The Chinese Communist Party is the ruling party of socialist China and
the representative of the interests of the people throughout the country.
Its leadership position has been the result of the historical choice made
by the Chinese people during their protracted and arduous struggle for
independence and emancipation. The leadership of the Party is mainly an
ideological and political leadership. The Party derives its ideas and
policies from the people's concentrated will and then turns them into
state laws and decisions which are passed by the National People's
Congress through the state's legal procedures. The Party does not take
the place of the government in the state's leadership system. The Party
conducts its activities within the framework of the Constitution and the
law and has no right to transcend the Constitution and the law. All Party
members, like all citizens in the country, are equal before the law.
The system of multi-party cooperation and political consultation under
the leadership of the Communist Party is the basic political system that
gives expression to people's democracy. It guarantees that all social
strata, people's organizations and patriots from various quarters can
express their opinions and play a role in the country's political and
social life. There are in China eight democratic parties apart from the
Communist Party; they are the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese
Kuomintang, the China Democratic League, the China Democratic National
Construction Association, the China Association for Promoting Democracy,
the Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party, the China Zhi Gong
Dang (Party for Public Interest), the Jiu San Society (September 3rd
Society) and the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League. Cooperation
between the Communist Party and these democratic parties took shape
during the democratic revolution before 1949, the year New China was
founded. The leading role of the Communist Party in the cooperation is
recognized by the democratic parties as it has been evolved in long years
of common struggle. These democratic parties shared with the Communist
Party the same basic political ideas whether in the struggle for
overthrowing the "three big mountains" or during the period of building
New China. Enjoying political freedom and organizational independence,
all these democratic parties have developed greatly. They are neither
parties out of office nor opposition parties, but parties participating
in state affairs. As China's ruling party, the Communist Party repeatedly
asks these democratic parties for their opinions on every major state
affair and consult with them for solutions. Relations between the
Communist Party and the democratic parties follow the guideline of
"long-term coexistence and mutual supervision, treating each other with
full sincerity and sharing weal or woe." Full play has been given to the
role of the democratic parties in participating in and discussing state
affairs, democratic supervision and uniting all the people. Many members
of the democratic parties have assumed leading posts in organs of state
power, government departments and judicial organs. Of the 19
vice-chairmen elected by the Seventh National People's Congress at its
First Session, seven are members of democratic parties. Nearly 1,200
members of the democratic parties and personages with no party
affiliations are holding leading posts in governments above the county
level.
The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) consists
of representatives of all the political parties and people's
organizations and from among patriots and democrats who support socialism
and the reunification of the motherland. New China's first Central
People's Government was elected by the First Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference. After the establishment of the National People's
Congress as the supreme organ of state power, the CPPCC became an
organization of the patriotic united front. It provides a forum for
discussions on major state policies and principles and big issues in
social life and plays a supervisory role through suggestions and
criticisms. The CPPCC usually convenes simultaneously with the people's
congress at the corresponding level. The system of political consultation
has played an important role in promoting democracy.
China attaches great importance to the promotion of democracy at the
grass-roots level so as to guarantee that citizens can directly exercise
their political rights. Neighborhood Committees are the grass-roots
democratic organizations in urban areas, and their counterparts in rural
areas are Village Committees. As self-governing organizations established
by the people, these committees deal with matters concerning public
welfare and residents' well-being while assisting local governments in
mediating family and neighborhood disputes, conducting ideological
education and maintaining public order. Most Chinese enterprises have
adopted the system of workers' congress, which is the basic form of
democratic management through which workers participate in the
decision-making and management of the enterprises and supervise the
enterprise leaders. Over the last few years, virtually all directors and
managers of large and medium-sized state enterprises have been examined
and their work appraised with the participation and supervision of the
workers' congresses.
The Constitution provides for a wide range of political rights to
citizens. In addition to the right to vote and to be elected mentioned
above, citizens also enjoy freedoms of speech, the press, assembly,
association, procession and demonstration. There is no news censorship in
China. Statistics show that of all the newspapers and magazines in China,
only one-fifth are run by Party and state organizations, and the others
belong to various democratic parties, social organizations, academic
associations and people's organizations. By law citizens have the right
to intellectual property, such as copy-right, and the right to
publication, patent, trademark, discovery, invention and scientific and
technological achievement. It is a matter of personal freedom for a
citizen to decide what book he will write, what point of view he will use
in writing it and which publishing house he will choose to have his book
published. Statistics show that an overwhelming majority of the 80,224
titles of books printed in 1990 with a total impression of 5.64 billion
copies were signed by individual authors. As to the freedom of
association, the 1990 statistics showed that there were 2,000
associations, including societies, research institutes, foundations,
federations and clubs. All these associations operate freely within the
framework of the Constitution and the law.
The Constitution also rules that citizens have the right to criticize and
make suggestions regarding any state organ or functionary and the right
to make to relevant state organs complaints or charges against, or
exposures of, any state organ or functionary for violation of the law or
dereliction of duty.
The Constitution provides that freedom of the person of citizens of the
People's Republic of China is inviolable. Unlawful detention or
deprivation of citizens' freedom of the person by other means and
unlawful search of the person of citizens are prohibited; the personal
dignity of citizens is inviolable, and insult, libel, false accusation or
false incrimination directed against citizens by any means is prohibited;
the residences of citizens are inviolable and unlawful search of, or
intrusion into, a citizen's residence is prohibited; freedom and privacy
of correspondence are protected by law, and those who hide, discard,
damage or illegally open other people's letters, once discovered, shall
be seriously dealt with, and grave cases shall be prosecuted.
The Constitution provides that China implements the system of people's
democratic dictatorship, which combines democracy among the people and
dictatorship against the people's enemies. To guarantee the people's
democratic rights and other lawful rights and interests, China pays great
attention to improving its legal system. It has promulgated and put into
effect a series of major laws, including the Constitution, the Criminal
Law, the Law of Criminal Procedure, the General Provisions of the Civil
Law, the Law of Civil Procedure and the Law of Administrative Procedure.
During the 1979-1990 period, the National People's Congress and its
Standing Committees made 99 laws and 21 decisions on legislative
amendments and passed 52 resolutions and decisions on legal matters; the
State Council formulated more than 700 administrative laws and
regulations; and the people's congresses and their standing committees of
various provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities and provincial
capital cities formulated numerous local laws and administrative rules
and regulations, of which more than 1,000 were about human rights.
The unity between rights and duties is a basic principle of China's legal
system. The Constitution stipulates that every citizen is entitled to the
rights prescribed by the Constitution and the law and at the same time
must perform the duties prescribed by the Constitution and the law, and
that in exercising their freedoms and rights, citizens may not infringe
upon the interests of the state, of society or of the collective, or upon
the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens. Legally citizens are
the subjects of both rights and duties. Everyone is equal before the
rights and duties prescribed by the Constitution and the law. No
organization or individual may enjoy the privilege of being above the
Constitution and the law.
Practice of the past 40-odd years since liberation proves that the
socialist democracy and legal system adopted by China are suited to the
country's actual conditions and that the people is satisfied with it. It
goes without saying that the building of this democratic politics and
this legal system is no smooth sailing. There were times when democracy
and law were seriously violated, such as happened during the "cultural
revolution" (1966-76). Nevertheless, the Communist Party, backed by the
people, corrected these mistakes and set the nation's socialist democracy
and legal system back to the course of steady development. Upholding the
general policy of reform and opening to the outside world and giving
great attention to building socialist democratic politics, China is
striving to improve and strictly enforce the socialist legal system and
continuing the work to reform and improve the political system -- all for
the purpose of ensuring that the people can fully enjoy their civic
rights and better exercise their political right of running the country.
No comments:
Post a Comment