Experiencing China again for the first time
Part III China-- The rule of law

On our first morning in China, we awoke to beautiful fall weather. Leona and I took a half-hour walk before breakfast in the hotel--a buffet with almost every breakfast food imaginable.

We spent our morning at the American Embassy in Beijing. en route to the Embassy Hell, our guide, informed us that all embassies in china are closed to the public because of an incident at the south Korean Embassy in a province four years earlier. Other information or thoughts she shared were:

The chinese people compare what they have now with what they had only a short time ago, and they are happy. they do not compare their situation with that of Americans. the government controls the media, so the people get only the bad news from the U.S.-- shootings in the street and the like--not the good.

The people care only about whether they have a good life. They know there are many corrupt officials in the central government, but that is not a major concern. Politics is a subject of interest in Beijing, but not in Shanghai, where the concern is money and the stock market.

We were again cautioned to ask her what it is proper to ask about an issue. Foreign journalists, we were told, are closely watched.

When she learned that two of us had been there as far back as1977, Helen noted the differences in the clothing worn by the Chinese then and now. People now wear colorful clothing, whereas in 1977 only "capitalist workers" would have done that (as compared to "socialists workers," which is what was wanted).The people then wore only drab grey, black or

blue, or green if they were in the military.

Before 1978 the government controlled everything. There was no private enterprise. all jobs were assigned by the government, and the government provided all housing. Foreigners were allowed to shop only at Friendship Stores because the government did not want them to see that the other stores had nothing to sell. The Chinese bought their goods with coupons, which were hard to get.

Materially, China has "grown up" fast in the ensuing years, but it has not grown at the same pace spiritually. As a guide, she does well; her parents have trouble understanding why she makes 15 times what her father is making 28 years after completion of his time in the university.

The material progress and prosperity were evident to us as we experienced a traffic jam going to the Embassy.

The details of our briefing at the Embassy were off the record. In broad, general terms, it dealt with the problems with North

Korea, with China's "Family Planning" (one-child) policy an d its demographic implications--an inadequate supply of wives and laborers, the shortage of good agricultural land, the development of a working transportation system, environmental issues and land confiscation.

Ronald Cheng, the Legal Officer at the Embassy, described the work of the Embassy and its staff. The Embassy has 300 American employees and600 chinese employees.The U.S. also has three consulates in china. Most U.S. government departments are represented here. The Embassy occupies three main buildings in Beijing and rents space in other buildings as well. a new embassy building is scheduled to open in 2008.

There is an ad hoc "Rule of Law" group within the Embassy. There is interest in "Rule of Law" issues, especial- ly criminal justice reform. The prospects for such are not good in the new term, but there is significant interest the chinese have moved toward an adversarial system. Trials are cursory. Most evidence is documentary. The reform process is slow or stalled.

The Embassy's Human Rights Officer, a former lawyer, is now a foreign Service Officer. he worked on the case of Chen Guangcheng, a blind lawyer who studied disability and class action law in the U.S. Mr. Chen then advocated for 130,000 people who were forced into detainment that resulted in forced sterilizations or abortions.

When he brought these abuses to light, the National Family Planning Council took action, including firing some people, over these practices. mr. Chen was not protected from retaliation, however. He was arrested and tried in a proceeding characterized by procedural and substantive abuses. Within twenty-four hours of his trial, his attorneys were arrested so that they could not represent him. The state appointed two attorneys to represent him. In August 2006 he was found guilty of damaging property and organizing a mob to disrupt traffic. His lawyers basically conceded the case except for arguing his blindness in mitigation. His action is viewed as a very positive story about the rule of law, but it became negative when the local officials intervened. There is, however, a network of dedicated Chinese lawyers trying to create substantive and procedural due process in China.

In answer to a query as to whether the "Rule of law" has any meaning in China, Mr. Cheng reviewed the recent legal history of China. In the Cultural Revolution (1964- 1976), all courts and law schools were abolished. Basically, there were no legal institutions and no lawyers.The entire legal system had to be rebuilt, beginning in about 1979. There are only 120,000 lawyers in China now, not enough to make a legal system serving 1.3 billion people work. Very few of these are involved in the criminal justice system.courts and judges are not independent; they are embedded in a legal system with the Chinese Communist party at the top.There are"political legal committees within the Party that oversee the work of the courts. There are people, though, who say they can get relief from the Party secretary when they cannot get it in the courts.

The U.S. Embassy is trying to promote greater transparency in the Chinese legal system.

Intellectual property issues are a matter of great concern in China. by the end of2007, our Embassy will have eleven staff members handling these issues. The chinese Trademark Office is the largest Trademark Office in the world,and China is the most litigious country in the world on intellectual property issues. there is a growing U.S. IP law presence there. Lawyers and other consultants have more important roles because the legal system is so immature and unrelieable as a way to protect complex environment in which to do business. There is a growing "rights consciousness," but building or reforming institutions to protect rights is very hard because the one-party system conflicts with the protection of individual rights.

Most legal scholars in China will say you cannot talk about judicial independence when the judiciary is incompetent, corrupt, and subject to government pressures to convict those charged with crime. There are many coerced confessions resulting in wrongful convictions.There is live-witness testimony in less than 5 percent of the cases. Annually there are between56,000 and13,000 executions. Death penalty review has devolved to the provinces but is now coming back to the national level.

Attorneys in general are not faring well in the criminal law system. There is a law against lawyers who suborn perjury, and lawyers often get arrested the night before a client's trial. This has an interrorem effect on lawyers who challenge government evidence and try to defend their clients. In the last year or two the environment has not been fertile for reform.

The U.S. Embassy has armed guards, and we had to present our passports to gain admission. We were told that this is due to two incidents: the accidental bombing by the U.S. of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia, and the downing of a Chinese plane in the South Sea. The U.S. Embassy is more heavily guarded as a consequence, and there is strict tracking of the people going in there.

Next Week Part IV China-an economic revolution

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