May in China: Civil Code, Security Law, COVID-19 Policy, and Brawl with the U.S.
Note: para n. The sole purpose of this piece is to serve my civic duty as a Chinese citizen. I am grateful for the contributions and sacrifices China and General Secretary Xi Jinping have made in combating COVID-19. Again, please love your country and love her rationally.
For anyone monitoring Chinese politics, May has been the most critical month in 2020 with the annual convening of the “Two Sessions”. The “Two Session”, composed of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Political Consultive Conferences (PCC), normally convenes every March not to debate but to pass legislations given to them and to appoint high level officials among other duties. Between the two, the NPC is theoretically more powerful as the PCC can only give policy suggestions while the NPC holds the paramount power of the People’s Republic of China by constitution. However, the NPC has been dubbed as a “rubber stamp” by many scholars and analysts given the practice of democratic centralism that concentrates power to the few members of the Politburo and its Standing Committee and the absolute rejection of any trace of separation of power by the likes of Deng Xiaoping.
To say the “Two Sessions” is insignificant would be completely ludicrous because it offers a rare opportunity to monitor the change of policy by the leadership. As for this year, two significant changes has been made: the introduction of the first ever Cvivil Code and the imposition of National Security Law upon Hong Kong.
I will begin with the less noticeable but highly important Civil Code, which has 7 volumes and is modified from previous laws. The passing of the Code is seemingly a fulfillment of the slogan of “upholding the rule of law”, with Chinese scholars stressing the Code is not a political slogan and will protect individual rights from the state. Even if that were to be believed, the practice of the law is subject to the court and given the lack of judicial independence in China, it is questionable whether individuals can file or win cases against the government or state controlled enterprises. For example, investors who lost millions of dollars during the historic oil price crash have been prevented to sue the Bank of China (BOC) over the immature financial market.
A closer examination of the Code offers another potential criticism: Volume 4, Number 1025 and 1026 have 1) stated journalists should be protected unless they “manufacture and distort the truth” and 2) provided criteria of “sufficient factchecking”. Such a clause is welcomed by scholars like Professor Shi Jiayou, who believes they “prevent unnecessary intervention of news agencies [by the state]”. However, if reports such as the COVID-19 virus is manufactured by the U.S. are considered true, the standard of truth is questionable as truth should not be whatever that could be favorable to the state. Indeed, such a law could even provide grounds to arrest and sentence journalists in China. Volume 4 of the Code, titled as Personality Right Law (人格法), which is the closest China can offer in the absence of a Human Rights Law (人权法), is perhaps immature comparing to its counterpart in the European Union. Even if the legal system is perfected, implementation under the current political system would be challenging given the systematic prosecution of human rights lawyers and activists who attempt to uphold the constitution.
One last criticism comes from Volume 5 of the Code governing marriage laws, which introduced a 30-day cooling-off period for couples who want to divorce. Critics can definitely argue that the state has blatantly interfered in the private domain. Such a law exposes the top-down hierarchical nature of the policymaking process in China as lawmakers, without a proper channel to gauge public opinions, can only draft laws that they deem fit, thereby potentially arousing public anger without consulting the public first. Perhaps under a modified political system, policymakers would at least be able to deflect blames that they are facing online and encourage more participation of politics to avoid the danger of political salience.
Let us wander into the more controversial and interesting topic of the imposition of Security Law upon Hong Kong. The term imposition is perhaps the fittest one because under the “One Country, Two Systems” framework, Beijing should leave Hong Kong to manage its own affairs and introduce its own laws instead of bypassing the Hong Kong legislature and issuing a decree using the NPC. Actually, the fact that such a law is needed to be imposed upon Hong Kong exposes its lack of popularity because the Hong Kong Legislature is currently controlled by the pro-Beijing camp.
Despite the constant reiteration that the capitalist system of Hong Kong would stay intact to calm investors, the imposition of the law essentially implies that the framework is being encroached faster than expectation and perhaps would result a Hong Kong losing its status as an international city that connects China and the world as once Hong Kong is stripped off its preferential trading status, investors would lose confidence in Hong Kong, thereby harming not only Chinese economy but the world economy. However, the Commerce Minster Zhong Shan has pointed out that “clever investors would not give up on the Chinese market” given its size and potential, which is shown by the increasing global reliance on China and China’s ability to use trade as a chip in international politics. Therefore, it shall be examined if the Security Law would only incur a short period of pain on China because investors and ethics might not come in pairs.
Another dangerous implication of the Security Law is its impact on Hong Kong citizens as they would unlikely give in easily to pressures from Beijing, making such an imposition likely to push moderate protestors into having a more extreme goal such as independence. Presuming the leadership would not employ military or “cleanse the city”, while extradition is unavailable and the impact of the change of education system would take generations to materialize, employing such a sudden and hardline policy against Hong Kong citizens would perhaps only result in a vicious cycle where violence would increase and peaceful protests would turn into riots, giving Beijing the excuse to label protestors as extremists and terrorists, and eventually legitimizing the use of excessive or even lethal force against Hong Kong citizens.
Additionally, the Hong Kong situation would definitively deteriorate the mainland-Taiwan relationship as people in Taiwan would think that the “One Country, Two Systems” framework proposed by Beijing is only a charade that serves the interests of Beijing. With the lasting protests in Hong Kong, Beijing has gifted Cai Yingwen an electoral victory given her strong stance on the Cross-Strait relations. In her inauguration speech, she explicitly informs Beijing about her “peace, parity, democracy, and dialogue” strategies to deal with the Cross-Strait relations. In response, the chief of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission, General Li Zuocheng stated that China will not promise to abandon the use of force and will resolutely crush any independence sentiments in Taiwan.
During the “Two Sessions”, domestic media has continuously praised the rapid and efficient response from General Secretary Xi Jinping and credited him for all the work leading to the almost eradication of COVID-19 in China. However, perhaps the great leader should not be the only one who receives the praises as China’s “five ones” policy has restricted countless Chinese citizens from going back to their own country despite the stabilization of cases across the world. China was praised for its ability to build hospitals within days but it is reluctant to set up more facilities to welcome back its own citizens abroad, perhaps to demonstrate how successful China and Xi are in combating the virus. Currently, Chinese embassies, at least in the UK, are closed and offer no tangible help to Chinese nationals abroad whose housing contract, visa, and passport are set to expire, disappointing countless Chinese citizens, especially under the slogan that “although a Chinese passport can not take you everywhere, it can take you home when you are in need”. Additionally, at least three students died from sudden cardiac arrest when running during PE class wearing the required mask. Excessive policies can certainly lead to a lower amount of COVID-19 cases, however, at what cost?
Meanwhile, China’s relation with the U.S. has been rapidly deteriorating as China has taken a tougher stance against the U.S. by using incendiary language and selective information at both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and media like CCTV. Interestingly, Chinese media has chosen to exploit the current riots in the U.S. by supporting rioters, leading many Chinese citizens detesting relatively peaceful Hong Kong protests while supporting the violent great cause of racial equality simultaneously. Moreover, with the withdrawal from WHO by President Trump, China has grasped the chance to elevate its global status by pledging 2 billion dollars to fight COVID-19, fulfilling “the responsibilities of a big country”.
