In Sharp Words From Xi, Ominous Implications for China’s Legal Reforms - China Real Time Report - WSJ

It's a 矛盾 - a contradiction -that as the Chinese Communist Party announces its commitment to rule of law its leadership employs rhetoric not heard in forty years to emphasize that it is dead serious about remaining in power.  The CP has enacted economic reforms that make them "capitalist roaders" of Mao Tse Tung's worst nightmares.  But they sure as hell are not European Social Democrats who intend 改革开放 opening and reform in the political arena.  They are firmly committed to law as a means of regularizing the resolution of the practical problems of modern (or is it post-modern) urban society.  But they do not intend to stand for election.

The problem they face is that enclosure is stultifying.  The thesis-antithesis-synthesis of China's modernization is that they have absorbed ideology from the west (Marxist socialism) while trying to wall off western liberalism, and welcoming western law (especially commercial law), and technology.  Yet rather than explore contradictions to develop new syntheses, Chinese friends often describe  topics as "sensitive" - from which one shies away.  It is increasingly difficult to exchange information. (e.g. my google blogs are inaccessible to my friends and their gmail accounts have been blocked).

Many Chinese colleagues have said things like "they treat us like children". Marxists believe themselves to be scientists yet science requires data - and much data - like the execution statistics - are "state secrets" inaccessible to researchers and policy analysts. Unless the CPC finds its way to opening the political process its fears will stunt China's economic growth and its intellectual influence in the world. - gwc

In Sharp Words From Xi, Ominous Implications for China’s Legal Reforms - China Real Time Report - WSJ
by Stanley Lubman
"President Xi Jinping’s recent rhetoric on ruling the country according to law has cast a new shadow over legal reform in China. Speaking of the courts and police in a meeting last month, Xi revived a vivid image from the Communist Party’s ideological vocabulary about the role of law, stating that the party must ensure “the handle of the knife is firmly in the hands of the party and the people.” Xi’s invocation of a menacing slogan ratcheted up the volume on a growing chorus of arguments that are being used to distance Chinese law from law in Western democracies."

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