RFA Unplugged is a Radio Free Asia blog. Written by RFA staff, this blog includes top stories and previously unpublished material from our language services, what’s coming up in our broadcasts, and what’s going on in the world of the Asian online media. We welcome your comments.
China’s leaders have been emphasising this concept of a ‘harmonious society’. In my view, and I have already made this view very clear, you need three key components on which to build the basis of a harmonious society, and this is a view which I have formed as a result of my work on my legal cases, especially in the Shanwei protest case. The first of these is that you must have complete respect and protection for the property rights of private individuals. That’s to say, you must have property rights for citizens…that means that if you own a house, you must be sure that someone’s not going to come along tomorrow and take it away from you, or demolish it. This is what happened in Shanwei. The authorities revoked, in a single evening, land-use rights contracts which had already been agreed and signed for a good many years. This is an example of what I mean by not fully respecting and protecting the property rights of private citizens. We could also look at the mass petitioner movement which has produced 80,000 individual cases over the 10 years from 1994-2004 according to government figures. Now the vast majority of these cases, easily 80 or 90 percent of them, involve this issue of individual property rights. Farmers who have lost their land. Urban residents who have been evicted and their homes demolished. Also there’s the Shanwei case which I have already mentioned. They all involve this issue of private property. We haven’t got a hope of establishing a harmonious society without protection for the property rights of private citizens.
…
The second key foundation is that the political rights of citizens must be fully respected and protected. This means the freedom of expression, that citizens must be free to express themselves. It is very important. There must be a medium in which they can make their opinions heard. You shouldn’t be able to lock someone up in jail just because you think what they say is wrong. It’s like Voltaire said: “I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” What if you meet all manner of opinions, like on the Internet, and you come across things that you think are wrong, even terribly badly wrong, you still shouldn’t be able to lock someone up for saying them. This is what I mean by political rights. So, a harmonious society is also impossible in the absence of freedom of speech and expression.
And finally, a harmonious society is impossible to build in the absence of an independent judiciary. If your legal system, which is the last resort that your citizens have, isn’t fair, because it is subject to influence from other quarters, then you won’t have a harmonious society. In Shanwei, the working group that was sent to deal with the demonstrations included an official from the courts, from the prosecutor’s office, and the chief of police. So what kind of fairness, what kind of justice can there be when they arrest some participant and bring him to trial, all with the participation of the court and and the procuratorate alongside the police? …It is very regrettable that the Chinese judiciary was only ever set up to be independent of administrative organs of the State, society or individuals. It doesn’t say anything about independence from political parties or other kinds of influence, so we really don’t have a judicial culture in China; we just have a court system. The penal system in China is run by the Party law and order committees, so its impossible for that not to influence the operation of the judiciary. But to take a long-term view, if the judiciary is going to be independent it needs not to be influenced by any other factors at all, including the media.
…so these are the three main cornerstones of a harmonious society. Of course we could also mention a fourth; a sincere and responsible government. And without those things, we can’t even start talking about a harmonious society.
The Mekong River is the longest river in Southeast Asia and supports the lives of 70 million people from Tibet to Vietnam. Our reporters undertook the journey to tell their stories. From these conversations, the team produced the "Mekong diaries," a series of videos on display on www.rfa.org.
RFA News in English
Mo Shaoping on the ‘harmonious society’
This clip was uploaded to YouTube by Duowei News, which appears to be an overseas Chinese-run news Web site[ZH]. Here is an English translation of the comments by Mo Shaoping, a Chinese lawyer well-known for defending political prisoners and representing clients in high-profile civil rights cases, like Gao Zhisheng’s. All the way through, he makes reference to the Shanwei protests, which ended in a violent crackdown on Dec. 6, 2005. This of course dovetails with recent coverage of “nail houses” in Chongqing and Guangxi, and with former top aide Bao Tong’s commentaries on the passing of the Property Law of the People’s Republic of China(PDF) at the March National People’s Congress:
China’s leaders have been emphasising this concept of a ‘harmonious society’. In my view, and I have already made this view very clear, you need three key components on which to build the basis of a harmonious society, and this is a view which I have formed as a result of my work on my legal cases, especially in the Shanwei protest case. The first of these is that you must have complete respect and protection for the property rights of private individuals. That’s to say, you must have property rights for citizens…that means that if you own a house, you must be sure that someone’s not going to come along tomorrow and take it away from you, or demolish it. This is what happened in Shanwei. The authorities revoked, in a single evening, land-use rights contracts which had already been agreed and signed for a good many years. This is an example of what I mean by not fully respecting and protecting the property rights of private citizens. We could also look at the mass petitioner movement which has produced 80,000 individual cases over the 10 years from 1994-2004 according to government figures. Now the vast majority of these cases, easily 80 or 90 percent of them, involve this issue of individual property rights. Farmers who have lost their land. Urban residents who have been evicted and their homes demolished. Also there’s the Shanwei case which I have already mentioned. They all involve this issue of private property. We haven’t got a hope of establishing a harmonious society without protection for the property rights of private citizens.
…
The second key foundation is that the political rights of citizens must be fully respected and protected. This means the freedom of expression, that citizens must be free to express themselves. It is very important. There must be a medium in which they can make their opinions heard. You shouldn’t be able to lock someone up in jail just because you think what they say is wrong. It’s like Voltaire said: “I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” What if you meet all manner of opinions, like on the Internet, and you come across things that you think are wrong, even terribly badly wrong, you still shouldn’t be able to lock someone up for saying them. This is what I mean by political rights. So, a harmonious society is also impossible in the absence of freedom of speech and expression.
And finally, a harmonious society is impossible to build in the absence of an independent judiciary. If your legal system, which is the last resort that your citizens have, isn’t fair, because it is subject to influence from other quarters, then you won’t have a harmonious society. In Shanwei, the working group that was sent to deal with the demonstrations included an official from the courts, from the prosecutor’s office, and the chief of police. So what kind of fairness, what kind of justice can there be when they arrest some participant and bring him to trial, all with the participation of the court and and the procuratorate alongside the police? …It is very regrettable that the Chinese judiciary was only ever set up to be independent of administrative organs of the State, society or individuals. It doesn’t say anything about independence from political parties or other kinds of influence, so we really don’t have a judicial culture in China; we just have a court system. The penal system in China is run by the Party law and order committees, so its impossible for that not to influence the operation of the judiciary. But to take a long-term view, if the judiciary is going to be independent it needs not to be influenced by any other factors at all, including the media.
…so these are the three main cornerstones of a harmonious society. Of course we could also mention a fourth; a sincere and responsible government. And without those things, we can’t even start talking about a harmonious society.
Share this:
Like this:
Related
Filed under: cantonese, China | Tagged: bao tong, china_civilrights, china_civil_rights, china_humanrights, china_law, china_media, china_property, china_rights, china_unrest, commentary, East Asia, east_asia, governance, guangxi, media, nailhouse, nail_house |