Sat, May 26, 2001 page8

• Groundswell of Chinese democracy

  • By Wang Dan 王丹
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  China's reforms and development over the last 20-plus years have often amounted to nothing more than the sanctioning by the authorities of faits accomplis. Pressure from the bottom up spurred reform from the top down. To some extent, the steps that the authorities have taken appear confused and disorderly. The reason for this is precisely that they are always being passively pulled along by circumstantial developments. This will also be the case in any progress made in the evolution of the people's congresses -- traditionally rubber-stamp bodies -- into real legislatures. Even if -- at the central government level -- the evolution of the National People's Congress into a real legislature still lies in the future, calls to strengthen the authority of the local congresses are growing louder and louder, and efforts to transform them into parliaments are already being made in certain areas.

  Deputies from Guangdong Province have been the most dynamic participants in peoples' congresses, demonstrating the highest level of professionalism. In 1999, standing committee member Wang Zechu (王則楚) of the Guangzhou Municipal People's Congress, put forward the view that the congress should have "decision making power over important matters." His call was widely echoed and the Guangdong Provincial People's Congress instituted it as a law, which went into effect on Oct. 1, 2000.

  On the basis of this law, at the beginning of last year, deputies to the Guangzhou Municipal People's Congress held eight consecutive interpellation sessions regarding the administrative behavior of government organs. They addressed issues including the increase in water prices, tolls on bridges, monopolistic management of gas pipelines, the relocation of cement factories and others.

  The sessions sparked an uproar throughout the country. The performance of the Guangdong People's Congress deputies in 2000 has been termed the "Guangdong phenomenon" by the media. Wang believes that the phenomenon is closely bound up with Guangdong's economic development and a process of political democratization. He has said that "The foundations are sufficiently democratic to lead the People's Congress deputies to be this feisty."

  Actually, there is another point that was inconvenient for him to mention. That is, provincial authorities are increasingly independent of the central government. This has provided a definite degree of protection to the political liberalization process within Guangdong province and has lent tolerance and encouragement to the actions of the people's congress deputies.

  At the local level, other provinces and cities have moved one after another, diligently trying to strengthen the authority of the people's congresses. On April 20, the standing committee of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress decided to evaluate the performance of a vice mayor. In the previous two years, this kind of evaluation had been done on several bureau chiefs in the city government, but it was the first time that a municipal-level leader had been evaluated. The municipal people's congress called it, "a new step for the democratic supervision of those public servants elected by the municipal people's congress."

  In 1989, a recall motion took place in the second session of the seventh Hunan Provincial People's Congress. The motion sent shock-waves throughout the nation when 117 deputies to the congress jointly petitioned to recall the then vice governor, Yang Huiquan (楊匯泉). The motion passed by an absolute majority. Fu Xuejian (傅學儉), who participated in the motion, is now a standing committee member of the Hunan Provincial People's Congress. In May 1998, during the second session of the ninth Hunan Provincial People's Congress, Fu rallied 15 other deputies and questioned the province's immigration office over the embezzlement of immigration funds. The questioning led to the dismissal of one deputy bureau chief and the conviction of a section chief.

  Commenting on the functions of local people's congresses, Fu told the media, "We can't sit and wait for the advent of a country with the rule of law. The local people's congress has a special mission."

  This sense of mission is sprouting in the minds of many deputies. Wang also said he and his colleagues wanted to demonstrate to the public through action that the people's congress can be an "iron stamp."

  Amid these calls from people's congress deputies, the supervisory role that they exercise over local governments is gradually winning more attention. More than 10 years ago, the word "supervision" was a taboo term. After the mid-1990s, the people's congresses began to say, rather vaguely, that they wanted to "infuse supervision into support." Now, supervision has become the prime task of the congresses at various levels. The National People's Congress and its standing committee have also proposed "giving equal importance to legislation and supervision." A "Supervision Law" (監督法) is also being drawn up.

  Even though the strengthening of supervisory functions is still a long way from an evolution into real legislatures, the developments are a sign that some of the local people's congresses and their deputies are already taking the initiative. Many of these deputies are former government officials and their political prowess is considerable. We can expect the people's congresses to become a dynamic factor in the future development of Chinese politics.

  Wang Dan was a student leader during the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations in Beijing.

  Translated by Ethan Harkness and Francis Huang
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