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Amendment highlights common citizens' rights
2004-03-22
China Business Weekly
The most crucial essence of China's recent constitutional revision is to enhance the economic and political rights of citizens, which limits the arbitrary power of the government.
The increased rights of individuals is particularly important as China experiences a historic economic and political transformation in which the interests of most people are concerned.
In fact, in the amendment to the Chinese Constitution -- which was passed during the second plenary meeting of the 10th National People's Congress on March 14 -- most new articles added were about the economic and political rights of citizens.
The amendments have 14 articles. They cover the safeguarding of human rights and the ownership of private property, putting the private assets of Chinese citizens on an equal footing with public property, both of which are "not to be violated.''
The amendments also stipulate that "the State may, in the public interest and in accordance with the provisions of law, expropriate or requisition land for its use and shall make compensation for the land expropriated or requisitioned.''
Originally, there was no constitutional article requiring the State to make compensation.
And the amendment has come at a most opportune time, because China's reform has entered a period of intense reshuffling.
Most of the population benefited during the early stage of the reform -- the 1980s and early 1990s -- simply by loosening the old rigid regimes, such as the collective production of agriculture, the tight control on prices and the prejudice against the private sector.
But as China's reform and opening-up policy advances, the interests of different social groups in the country have become increasingly different to one another.
This is likely to lead to conflicts of interest between different social groups, such as workers and entrepreneurs. The interest of one side often benefits above others.
For example, urban and industrial developments in China have been advanced by cheap land costs which means farmers, who are already poor and less socially sophisticated, are compensated very unsatisfactorily.
In cities, many local governments endow the ownership rights of enterprises originally owned by the State to their current leaders. While theoretically a clear ownership can invigorate the enterprises, such moves may infringe on the rights of workers because they could lose their jobs during the reform.
The dark side of the current reform is exploited by one kind of group -- referred to as vested interest groups -- which is much stronger than others such as farmers and workers.
They often push their interests by branding themselves as serving public interests, and they can often reach their goals through lobbying or even bribing government officials.
Unlike mature market economies, the government power remains quite strong and uncurbed in China's current market-oriented reform. Some local government officials are likely to ally with vested interest groups to acquire their personal interests.
Compared with strong social groups,farmers, urban residents and workers have fewer resources to use in the social change accompanying the reform process.
Therefore, they need a strong weapon -- the increased constitutional and legal stipulations of personal rights and the government, to maintain their rights.
For most private entrepreneurs, increased constitutional rights are also of high importance.
For example, the current Company Law requires a very high threshold for individuals to start personal businesses. This is a violation of people's rights to do business.
It may be argued that increased individual rights in China may increase the cost of economic development and possibly add disorder to the current reform.
It is true that if farmers are given higher compensation and employees offered better working conditions, the production costs in China will rise, sometimes even considerably.
And it is also true that if workers from reformed State-owned enterprises ask for too much from managers, the reform might become stranded. Statistically speaking, increased personal rights may slow economic growth.
But such a thought is biased because if most people cannot benefit from the economic growth, the growth itself is to be questioned.
If the increased and existing social wealth cannot be equally distributed among various social groups, the economic growth will be almost impossible to sustain, because most people will not have strong consumption.
People's political rights are of the same importance as their economic rights, because political rights are the basis for economic rights. In the reform process, people should be given rights to elect, supervise and replace government officials and prevent them from allying with stronger social groups to encroach on common people's rights and benefits.
In fact, ordinary people will not espouse the constitutional revision unless it brings more apparent rights to them. Without the participation of ordinary people, the amended Constitution would be very difficult to implement -- if not impossible.
This is the very principle that the law is by the people, of the people and for the people.
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