By Hu Deping (胡德平)
Issue 593, Nov 05, 2012
News, cover
Translated by Zhu Na
Original article: [Chinese]

In this new era, I think that the Communist Party and the nation face two fundamental issues. The first is still the old question of making a firm decision to press ahead with reform and opening up, which includes further reform of the economic system and also of the political system. The second challenge is how to move ahead with implementing socialist constitutional governance, governing and ruling the country according to the law and the constitution.

Reform Cannot be Abandoned, Promises Cannot be Forgotten

I’ll first say a few words regarding the question of reform, “Reform cannot be abandoned and promises cannot be forgotten.” The entire party and the whole nation are all currently thinking about what kind of responsibilities and obligations will weigh on the Chinese Communist Party during this next stage of reform. We should seek an efficient and prosperous form of reform and development, but, at the same time, we cannot reduce the responsibilities of our party nor lessen the Chinese Communist Party’s commitment to the people.

A business man once said that China's largest trust organization is the Communist Party of China and that the party thus bears a “fiduciary duty.” In one sense, we can say that the general population has handed over both themselves and their future to the ruling party and therefore the party bears responsibility for the fate of the people and the nation.

The party not only has to deepen reforms but also honor the promises that were made to the people in the past. While it is indeed very difficult to achieve both of these goals at the same time, we still need to continue carrying this out. This is our responsibility as the ruling party.

For example, although the Communist Party didn’t sign a direct contract with farmers and workers, the principles of socialist justice should in no way be impaired. For example, in the past [the government] introduced a retirement system and now it’s introducing social security coverage. Where is the money for social security coming from and is it sustainable? Currently there are still large gaps in social security coverage.

If we want to achieve the goal of making sure “care is available to old people, education is available to children, medical service is available to the sick” (老有所养，幼有所教，病有所医), we need to make sure that the people aren’t troubled by these kinds of questions. Once the people have been assured of this, no-one will able to get in the way of the impetus for reform. We should take on the task of gradually pushing ahead with the promotion of both social security and reform. 

At the same time, the government is not omnipotent, it should mobilize the enthusiasm of everyone and encourage and inspire people from all levels of society. The government should not to try to do everything all by itself, this is one area in which further reform is needed.

This can also be applied to the reform of China’s state-owned enterprises. Through a period of reform, many of these companies adopted modern business systems, they are now much more open and developed. However, it is more important that the managers and employees of these companies are aware that the nation has entrusted this enterprise to you and has faith that you will do a good job in managing these “state-owned assets”.

State-owned enterprises are managed on behalf of the people but who really owns and profits from them? The reform of state-owned enterprises is a reflection of the party’s ideology and shows the tendency of reform - problems associated with monopolies will not be tolerated. I think the next step of the reform program should focus on solving this problem.

At the core of busting monopolies is the break-up of monopoly state-owned enterprises. The state-owned enterprises cannot simply talk about “profit maximization” at all costs as this will put them in competition with the people in a scramble for profits.

State-owned monopoly enterprises should also operate according to the rules of the market and not simply acquire and integrate resources via administrative fiat, otherwise all we’ll see is the “advance of the state and retreat of private enterprise” (国进民退).

This trend of the “advance of the state and retreat of private enterprise” which occurred in many sectors over the past few years, really has not helped with the fundamental transformation of the mode of economic development. In my opinion, state-owned enterprises should be able to advance and also retreat, they should be involved in some fields and not others and we should create the conditions that allow private enterprises to gradually enter monopoly industries. To state it clearly, I think we should encourage fair competition regulated by the law and establish and standardize an open and fair market. Let all market players perform their proper role and compete for their place in it.

 Push Ahead with Constitutional Governance and the Rule of Law

In the era of imperial autocracy, there was no legislative body in the machinery of state and only criminal law regulated the relationships between the monarch and his ministers and the ordinary people. There was no constitution. An emperor’s word was the law and he was the state.

After the Xinhai revolution of 1911, a feudal Empire with more than 2,000 years of history became the Republic of China (民国). Political parties and the people began to have a basic understanding of the concept of a constitution and the state wanted to establish a system of constitutional government. Later, after the establishment of a new basis of state power, the Communist Party of China continued on with this task, one that can only be completed step by step.

Who possess the sovereignty of a state is clear but who should safeguard the sovereignty of a Republic? All modern states, without exception, allow their most important legislative body to establish the constitution and allow the constitution to protect state sovereignty.

The constitution is the fundamental law of a country and states without a constitution cannot be called Republics. For a state with a constitution but in which constitutional governance is not practiced, the document simply contains empty words on a sheet of paper.

Our party gained political control of the state and we went from being a revolutionary party to a ruling party. We gained the support of all classes and sectors of society and the foundation of the establishment of our power lay in our ability to form a consensus among all classes behind a common goal.

In the beginning, this consensus formed around the Common Program (共同纲领), which acted like something of a temporary constitution, and then we enacted the formal Constitution.

What the constitution embodies is the basic common understanding of the people, various political parties and all classes. So, who should be the first to uphold the constitution, respect the constitution and strive to promote the implementation of the Constitution - it should be the Communist Party of China as the long-term ruling party.

To push for the real implementation of the constitution and to advance the idea that socialist constitutional governance is really carried out, is one of the basic tasks of the Chinese Communist Party as the ruling party.

We’ve already learnt a profound lesson from history about what happens when we as a nation disregard the constitution, put aside the constitution, damage the authority of the constitution and don’t rule the country in accordance with the constitution or the law. The disaster of the Cultural Revolution was so painful, the country, the people and the party all suffered heavy losses, and one of the fundamental causes of all this turmoil was that the constitution and laws became empty words. We need to make sure that this lesson remains etched deep in our minds.

In the three decades since the comprehensive revision of our constitution in 1982, both the constitution and its matching system of laws have been continuously improved, in line with the laws of historical development and the requirements of development, this is worthy of recognition.

The Chinese Communist Party as a ruling party has stated clearly that it intends to rule the country by law, and clearly stated that the core of ruling the country by law is to govern the country according the Constitution. No organization or individual, including the party, should be allowed to exceed or deviate from the scope of the Constitution and the law. These statements represent historically-significant progress.

However, we also need to be aware, that in the actual implementation of the constitution and the law, power wins out over the law a lot of the time. We also need to acknowledge that party and government officials do use their power to interfere with the legal process. Some existing laws and regulations do not comply with the spirit and the requirements of the Constitution.

In addition, some of the rights included in our constitution have not been backed up by written laws that make sure they are guaranteed. In the political, economic, social, cultural and other fields there are still many cases in which the civil rights awarded by the constitution are either damaged or disrespected and some of these cases are very serious.

The existence of these problems not only harms the healthy development of the country and violates the rights of the people, it also damages both the position and the ability to govern of the Communist Party of China.

That is to say, although we have the basic consensus of governing the country according to the constitution and by law, the country's constitutional and legal system is still an unfinished project and there is still much room for improvement.

Therefore, to continue to push ahead with the construction and implementation of a socialist system of constitutional governance is one of the basic tasks of the Communist Party of China in this new era. This is also the basic requirement that this generation has asked of the Chinese Communist Party as a ruling party.