Introduction

By Eva Cheng

Beginning in late 1978, the Communist Party of China’s “reform and door
opening” program has purportedly sought to strengthen China’s socialist
course by introducing market mechanisms to speed the development of the
productive forces. However, by the 1990s, especially in the second half,
when state-owned enterprises were privatised en masse, displacing
numerous workers and increasingly depriving retired workers of their
hard-earned entitlements, the CPC’s claims of staying on the socialist
path had become a subject of hot debate.

The corruption and degeneration of a section of the CPC were issues even
before the so-called reform, and were certainly made worse by the influx
of foreign capital in the 1980s. This added to growing frustration with
workers’ worsening plight, forming the backdrop to the student protests
beginning in 1986-87 and escalating into a series of bold mobilisations
in early 1989, which Beijing answered by massacring the protesters on
June 4, 1989.

Dissidents within the CPC and the people’s movement were forced into a
retreat, which the Deng Xiaoping leadership seized upon to escalate the
“door opening” measures into more outright pro-capitalist policies. The
retreat of street mobilisations, however, didn’t stop intense
questioning and debate from taking place, for example the heated debate
in the 1990s, which even the official press had to carry, on the theme
“What’s the surname of China’s reform?—Capitalist or Socialist?” Despite
popular pressure, the wholesale denationalisation of state firms pressed
ahead in the late 1990s, often through management buyouts (mbos) at
greatly depressed prices—a systematic looting of state assets by “well
connected” people or CPC officials under some disguise. Under Jiang
Zemin’s leadership, the CPC even formalised in 2001—on the 80^th
anniversary of the party’s founding—the welcoming of capitalists as
party members. The country’s constitution was amended in 2004 to provide
explicit protection for private property.

The government decided to codify this protection in a new law—the draft
Property Law. This law was also seen as a way to legitimise the massive
wealth looted from the state, about which corrupt officials do not yet
feel fully confident, being reluctant to display or reinvest it in the
absence of an explicit law.

When the draft was released for public consultation in July 2005, many
observers were shocked that the primacy of public property—a key
foundation of New China—was marginalised. They rightly feared that this
law might open wide the door for yet another swag of pro-capitalist
measures. Legal Professor Gong Xiantian’s open letter, which follows,
has become the focal point of a popular debate after he was, in a rare
move, called in by top Beijing officials to elaborate his views and a
campaign was launched by pro-capitalist legal practitioners to discredit
him. The public debate was followed by a surprise backdown in March
2006, when the government delayed turning the draft into law. This
development was celebrated as a small victory by the pro-socialist
forces in China.

The victory was transient indeed. In the same month, a group of about 50
neo-liberal economists, legal experts and senior government officials
met in a secret gathering in Beijing to plot how to push China’s
“reform” from its economic stage to its political stage. The exact
substance of the push for “political reform” has never been clearly
spelled out, but its outright capitalist agenda is unmistakable.

Also unmistakable was the official weight of the participants, most of
whom are CPC members recently involved in advising or carrying out
“system restructuring” under China’s “economic reform” agenda. There is
every indication that they represent a section of a crystallising
pro-capitalist wing within the CPC that is now ready to come out of
hiding. As one participant put it in a leaked transcript of the meeting,
the so-called reformers are getting sick of having to “signal left while
actually seeking to turn right”.

In the leaked transcript, there were calls to adopt the Taiwanese
(capitalist) model, for the CPC to split into two factions (presumably
to give more public space for the pro-capitalist wing) and for the
military to be directed by the state (rather than under the CPC’s
command, as at present). Who in the top CPC leadership are behind this
pro-capitalist current remains unclear. But there are few signs that
ex-general secretary Jiang Zemin would frown on their political
direction. There is educated speculation that these right-wing forces
are preparing for bigger changes in their favour at the CPC’s next
congress, in late 2007.

After the 1989 setback, popular resistance to the pro-capitalist trend
has been recovering in militancy but not in organisation. Increasing
numbers of workers and retired workers are resisting privatisation and
the price they have to pay for it, while peasants and rural dwellers
fight against abuses of local officials—often on tax, land, health,
education and pollution issues. They are behind the growing trend of
“mass [protest] incidents”, which the police reported to have risen from
58,000 in 2003 to 74,000 in 2004. But they were mostly of a spontaneous
nature and on a workplace or local level.

Popular resistance is also unfolding on a more ideological level. The
pro-capitalist push has prompted one debate after another, mainly via
the internet and in a more moderate way through other more controlled
media, relying on a layer of Marxist intellectuals as bedrock. A big
debate has centred on the massive looting of state property via mbos
(see Links #27 and, on ESSF website: A letter to General Secretary Hu from a group of veteran CCP members, veteran cadres, veteran military personnel and intellectuals) and the rising influence of neo-liberalism.

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 A Property Law (Draft) that violates the constitution and basic principles of socialism

By Gong Xiantian

[Subtitled “An open letter prompted by the annulment of section 12 of
the constitution and section 73 of the General Rules of the Civil Law of
1986”, this paper by Beijing University Professor Gong Xiantian was
dated August 12, 2005. The translation for Links is by Eva Cheng.]

As a member of the Communist Party of China (CPC), a citizen of the
People’s Republic of China, a professor who has engaged in years of
research on the teaching on law, someone with party spirit, conscience,
knowledge and experience, I am of the view that the Property Law (Draft)
of the People’s Republic of China (abbreviated as Draft from here on)
violates the fundamental principles of socialism and will roll the
“wheel of history” backwards. In the absence of amendments of a
principled nature, the National People’s Congress has no right to
legislate the Draft because it violates the Constitution (see appendix)!
The basic spirit and fundamental principles of the Draft go against the
fundamental stance and principles of Marxism, the CPC’s orientation and
principles of socialist legislation, the basic spirit and demand for a
scientific developmental perspective and for the construction of a
socialist society of harmony as promoted by the party central leadership
under General Secretary Comrade Hu Jintao.

1. The Draft’s annulment of core clauses of the constitution and the
General Rules of Civil Law is unconstitutional. In my view, some people
are seeking to achieve through the Property Law what they failed to
achieve through the 2004 amendment of the constitution. A fundamental
difference between a socialist constitution and a capitalist
constitution lies in their treatment of the issue of the private
property system. V.I. Lenin said: “The spirit and basic content of all
constitutions previously, including those in the most democratic and
republican category, all boil down to the private ownership system”.1
For the victorious proletariat, the restriction and abolition of the
private property system have been the key expressions of its rule as a
class. As a result, recognition of the socialist public ownership system
forms a most distinguishing feature of a socialist constitution, as
opposed to a capitalist one. Therefore, “the sanctity of public property
under socialism” becomes one of the most defining characteristics of a
socialist constitution.

To the labouring masses and all Chinese citizens, the public ownership
system and state property provide the most important and fundamental
protection to—and are also the material expression of—the property right
of each of them. In the absence of the property right of the state and
the collective, the property right of individual citizens has no chance
of being realised. However, in our country, there are people who, on the
one hand, have been scheming ceaselessly to remove the principle of “the
sanctity of public property under socialism” from our constitution and,
on the other hand, have been seeking to replace it with the spirit and
principle of “the sanctity of private property”. It’s worth being highly
alert to this trend! Even under the constitution and the General Rules
of Civil Law, which spell out clearly the principle of “the sanctity of
public property under socialism”, public property is still violated and
damaged to such an extent. It’s hard to imagine what would happen if
this stipulation were gone! The basic spirit of the Draft is not
consistent with this stipulation. It violates the principle of
continuity in legislation and is also a violation of the constitution.

2. In form, the Draft safeguards equally the property rights of each
citizen of the country, but its essence and main agenda are to protect
the property rights of a small minority.

The Draft seeks essentially to protect private property, camouflaging it
with the protection of public property as a decorative supplement; it
seeks essentially to protect individuals’ property rights, camouflaging
them with the protection of state and collective property rights; it
seeks essentially to protect the property rights of individuals that in
fact already exist, camouflaging them with stipulations to protect state
property rights—which are in reality deficient, even inoperable and
unrealisable; it seeks to protect the property rights of a tiny
minority—an object of enormous size—for which the prerequisites and
basis for realisation aren’t an issue, camouflaging them with the
protection of the property rights of the predominant bulk of the
people—an object of minute size—that seek to address minimum, urgent and indispensable daily needs.

According to the basic theorem of system theory, even if ninety-eight
per cent of the clauses of this law are good, reasonable and scientific
when scrutinised individually, if two per cent of the clauses are
flawed, it is sufficient to lead to the entire law being flawed. This
depends on the spirit and principles on which these clauses were drawn
up, depends on what effects these two per cent have. Otherwise, what is
the basis of the saying that “Four taels can be a counterweight to a
thousand catties”? [2]

The most critical and core clauses of the Draft are wrong! Not only have
they not protected public property rights (communal property under
socialism and state property), which are the legislative expression of
the socialist public ownership system that forms the material
prerequisites and economic foundation of citizens’ equal rights in our
country. Even worse, under the impact of the prevailing privatisation
current of thought in our country, in reality, the economic sectors
based on the public property system are no longer the main game, and the
leading position of the state economy has been seriously impaired. Under
these circumstances, not only does the Draft do nothing to change this
scenario and thereby provide measures and legislative directions to
consolidate and develop the economic basis of socialism in our country.
It also endorses the existing state of play— i.e., endorses the vested
interests of a tiny minority as well as their rights to appropriate the
wealth of society through illegal means. The basic spirit and
fundamental inclination of the Draft will surely further boost the
process of privatisation, be socially polarising and lead to a greater
wealth gap and a serious division of and sharp contradictions in society.

3. The Draft turns its back on socialist principles and steers the wheel
of history backwards.

Equality under socialism refers to:

Firstly, the Communist Party—armed with Marxism—leads the people in
overturning the reactionary regime, establishing the rule of the
proletariat and, through state power, delivers equal political rights to
the people. This is the prerequisite for the equal rights of citizens
under socialism. Therefore, we must insist on the democratic
dictatorship of the people, the leadership of the Communist Party and
Marxism, Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought.

Secondly, through its state power the proletariat abolishes the private
ownership of the means of production, and establishes a socialist public
ownership system that defends the means of production, providing each
citizen an equal share of the means of production, thereby eliminating
the possibility of exploitation, providing the material safeguards to
make possible equal citizens’ rights, providing the foundation and
constituting the content for the equal rights of socialist citizens.
Therefore, we must uphold the socialist system (such that we can realise
the five characteristics of socialism as outlined by Deng Xiaoping).
Thirdly, while establishing political and economic equality, the
Communist Party needs to use state power to legislate such that the
political and economic rights of the citizens can be instituted legally
as well as in form.

The equality enshrined in socialist laws is equality built on equal
remuneration for equal labour, which comes about after the establishment
of the state power based on the dictatorship of the proletariat, rooted
in the abolition of the privilege of capital or money, built on the
foundation of public ownership of the means of production, on the
premise of the equal ownership of the means of production by all
citizens. Put simply, this is the equality of labour. Labour is an
activity that reflects and actualises the essence of human beings. To
the absolute majority of people, using this yardstick to ascertain and
determine the distribution of the means of livelihood is consistent with
the interest of the absolute majority and consistent with equality and
justice under socialism. The party and state power of the proletariat
defend the socialist public property system to safeguard the material
basis for citizens’ equal rights and for the Communist Party’s own rule.
If this basis is gone, what place remains for the Communist Party?

Since the reform and opening policy3 started—especially under the
influence in recent years of neo-liberal economics of the West and the
“Washington consensus”—a small minority in China, who seek to promote
capitalism and to bring down the state enterprises on which the economy
of New China has been based and which have scored an impressive record,
smeared the state enterprises as being “inefficient” and “feeding lazy
buggers”. In name, they are seeking to steer the state enterprises to
health, but in reality, they are steering them to death, selling them at
deflated prices. (Remember what Premier Zhu Rongji once said: “In what
way is it a sale? It’s a giveaway, a half-sale, half-giveaway.”) These
moves have resulted in a massive leakage of the assets of state
enterprises, forcing redundancy on many workers, resulting in the
serious economic and social problems that prevail today, bringing great
difficulties to the work of the party central leadership as well as the
government, locking all players on the chessboard into a state where
taking initiatives is difficult.

In recent years, people have taken counter-socialist measures and paths
under fancy titles such as “a conversion to shareholding structure”,
“cash payment in lieu of a worker’s entitlements based on years of
employment”, “state enterprises retreat to make space for ‘people’-owned
enterprises”, “management buyout” and “strategic restructuring”. No one
can say with certainty how much or little is left of the state
enterprises! At the moment, no one has anything responsible to say about
state enterprises and state property. According to the scientific
estimates of veteran cadres who have spent their whole working lives at
the State Statistics Bureau and other specialists, the output of the
state sector isn’t even seventeen per cent of the country’s industrial
output. Yet, highly regrettably, individual leading officials of the
bureau continue to lie to the party central leadership as well as the
people, failing to provide a credible figure. The statistics released so
far are self-contradictory, full of mistakes and omissions, with errors
of such a serious nature that they absolutely shouldn’t have occurred.

Although our party decreed and billed our task as two “unwaverings”,4
many of our cadres are unwavering only with respect to the so-called
people-owned enterprises (which are mostly privately owned). Even years
ago, there were provincial officials who appealed for a big push to
develop so-called people-owned enterprises “with their hearts at ease
[implying they wouldn’t be charged later for political incorrectness, as
happened during the Cultural Revolution], with minimum prescriptions and
with boldness”. Later on, the “easy going” policy was added [as a fourth
element], thus constituting the “four let go” policy5 on the
people-owned economy. However, the development of publicly owned
enterprises has received no special attention, as it should have, nor
have useful measures been taken on the issue. Things happened this way
because the public sector is not where the interest of these cadres
lies. With meticulous calculation, they try to put state enterprises in
an extremely difficult state, leading to the tragic situation where
there was the need for a struggle for a [fair and equal] “national
treatment” [on par with private enterprises] for state enterprises! This
is why some members of the masses said the “common property party” [the
literal meaning in Chinese of “communist party”] has become the “private
property party”!

To talk about equal protection in such a grave scenario is like
advocating protection for a beggar’s multipurpose stick and bowl equally
with the machinery and vehicles of the minority! It’s like giving
protection to the homes of average citizens, even their dangerous
derelict homes, equally with the high-class villas of those who have
struck a windfall fortune! According to the current conception of the
Draft, equality will be delivered only to capital but not for the
protection of labour. What is the difference then with capitalism? In
the absence of the objects of such rights, or when such objects are few
and far between, what possibility remains for equality of the subjects?
What difference is there then with equality under capitalism? What’s the
point of protecting something that I don’t have? I don’t need protection
for things not in my possession! Even less do I need protection for
things that I can’t possibly have even in the future! With respect to
the ownership of the means of production, one is super-rich, with net
worth of millions, tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of
dollars; the other is a bum possessing nothing of value, providing no
basis at all to talk about any equality between the subjects! The
prerequisites and targets for the adjustments that the Draft is aiming
for simply do not exist!

Recently, mining disasters have kept popping up, and they mainly
happened in privately owned mines (such as the one in Guangdong province
on August 8). Collusion between officials and the businesspeople also
led to incidents such as the one in Dingzhou,6 and the ones in Beijing
and Huailai resulting in 10,000 mu of “weeping” corn (eighty per cent of
which couldn’t be harvested).7 Were these merely rare incidents? Were
they merely accidental? In the year before last, when Premier Wen
[Jiaobao] kind-heartedly sought to claim their back wages on behalf of
rural-to-urban migrants, who was he trying to mock? Hasn’t China Central
Television reported the example whereby a state enterprise in Zibo city
in Shandong province was engaging in acts that involved “the left hand
causing the downfall of the right hand, and what’s publicly owned
turning into private property”? Aren’t these disasters caused by the
privatisation of the means of production?

If the present Draft is passed, the fundamental will and long-term
interest of the majority of China’s citizens will be violated, further
damaging the material basis of the CPC’s rule, making worse the
relationship between the party and the masses as well as that between
the government and the masses, leading to greater hidden social concerns
and disastrous consequences. This will pose the greatest and most
fundamental threat to [the goal of] a harmonious socialist society, and
is a serious incident that pains the sympathetic forces and pleases
their hostile counterparts! Very early on, Deng Xiaoping said: “China
needs to solve the poverty and development problem of 1 billion people.
If we go down the path of capitalism, a minority may get rich but a big
number of people will be mired in poverty for a long time. The issue of
China needing a revolution will arise.” One must understand: a
revolution will arise when the upper crust of society can’t continue to
rule and manage as it did before, while the bottom layers of society
aren’t willing to continue living the way they did. It’s not that they
“can’t” continue living that way, but that they aren’t willing to! Isn’t
privatisation the most fundamental cause of instability in Chinese
society today?

In my view, the Draft:

(1) Turns its back on the socialist tradition and conception under the
Soviet Civil Code, adapting instead to the principles and conceptions of
a capitalist civil code. Some people have “slavishly plagiarised the
bourgeoisie’s civil code” and “copied the bourgeoisie’s archaic civil
code conceptions”.

(2) Turns its back on the fine tradition of our people’s democratic
legal system, which was practised in the [pre-1949] liberated zones and
since New China was founded, and adapts to the archaic legal tradition
of the bourgeoisie. It is not fundamentally different from the
Kuomintang’s “Civil Guidebook”,8 nor is it operating on a different
principle.

(3) Turns its back on the socialist principles in the 1986 General Rules
of Civil Law and adapts to the fallacy of capitalist globalisation and
neo-liberal economics.

(4) Turns its back on the socialist principles and tradition of Marxism
and adapts to the principles and tradition of the bourgeoisie. In all,
this is a Property Law that turns its back on socialist principles and
steers the wheel of history backwards.

4. Clarity is required about a few questions.

I think it’s important to distinguish between: (1) The relationship
between the concrete clauses, the concrete principles and the entire
legislation of the Draft. The absolute majority of the clauses (their
essence) and the concrete principles of the Draft are correct and good.
But once they form part of the whole legislation (system), there’s a
qualitative change;

(2) The scholars and experts who took part in the drafting process, the
leading officials who are involved in drafting laws and the state
institutions that pass the laws. A difference must be drawn between the
experts (jurists) and politicians; the work of the actual law drafters
should be given recognition, and their labour respected, but their
professional limitations exist. It’s different in the case of
politicians, leading officials and power institutions, as they should
have a political—i.e., a bird’s eye—perspective and a concept of the
totality.

(3) The fundamental principle and spirit of the entire law, which I
oppose, and ninety-eight per cent of its clauses, because based on the
legal discipline as well as formally, those clauses are correct and
scientifically based.

5. Queries and an appeal.

My queries are:

(1) Why on earth was the clause on the “sanctity of state (public under
socialism) property” removed? Legislating according to the constitution
is one of the most fundamental legislative principles, so why wasn’t
this principle observed?

(2) Why not first establish the overall principles of the civil
code—spell out the common and fundamental principles underpinning
various specific civil laws—and only then move on to legislate one by
one the so-called Property Law or Creditors’ Law and such like?

(3)Why wasn’t the state property law researched and legislated despite
having been on the legislative schedule years ago? Why wasn’t the law
governing leading cadres’ declarations of their personal assets
legislated despite years of appeals?

I urgently appeal:

(1) For the social stability of our country and strategic planning
towards our goal of building a harmonious socialist society, please
prioritise discussion of questions such as the fundamental principles of
the constitution, the direction that our socialism should take and
whether or not we would continue on the socialist path, as well as the
relationship between public (i.e. state and collective) property rights
and the property rights of individual citizens. Otherwise, kindly delay
the processing of the Property Law. Don’t let the discussion drift on to
side issues and details, while forgetting the big questions regarding
the fundamental principles that affect the absolute majority of the
people. Side issues and details need to be discussed and the petty
immediate and personal interests of citizens deserve attention, but
there’s no way to avoid a discussion of the fundamental, long-term and
principled interests of all citizens of this nation.

(2) Stop immediately the sale or transfer of state property. Under no
circumstances should state property be sold or released at will to the
market! No state institution has the right to sell the property of a
socialist state as it pleases! This is common property, jointly held by
and belonging to each citizen of this country! Even collective property
must be sold only with the consent of all members of the collective
concerned!

(3) Speed up the passage of the state property law and the law governing
leading cadres’ declaration of their personal assets, both of which have
been on the nation’s legislative schedule for years. First on the list
should be a special law governing the recovery of missing state
property. This is to realise the principle of “deploy power for the
people, have affection towards the people, and work for the interests of
the people”!

We have to cultivate from scratch the legal civilisation of socialism,
and not follow in the footsteps of the legal civilisation of capitalism!
In the twenty-first century, it is not possible for us to create as our
ancestors did with the Tang Law—a legal code encapsulating the legal
civilisation of feudal society—nor is it possible to create something
like the Napoleonic Code—a legal code encapsulating the legal
civilisation of capitalism—as the French bourgeoisie did. To move along
the grand path of legal civilisation opened up by socialist countries so
far is our only way forward! We should learn from and assimilate the
achievements from all past civilisations, but we absolutely mustn’t
blindly imitate and slavishly copy the civil code of the bourgeoisie. We
must create a socialist legal civilisation that carries our national
characteristics! Otherwise, we can only draw up a civil code that steers
the wheel of history backwards, not one that we can ever be proud of,
but, rather, one that will bring shame to China’s legal civilisation!
Whenever future generations talk about this law, its passage and those
mainly responsible for its promulgation, I dare predict that they won’t
pay the scrupulous salute and respect that I do to those responsible for
the drafting and promulgation of the Draft!

(Note: due to health reasons, I shall decline any requests for
discussion or information from any individual.)

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Appendix

In my initial reading of the Draft, I discover:

(1) Section 73 is the main section of the General Rules of Civil Law of
1986 which the Draft changes: “State property belongs to all the people
of the nation. State property is sacred and inviolable. Any organised or
individual attempts to appropriate, forcibly seize, privately divide up,
block and withhold or damage them is prohibited.”9 The Draft,
incredibly, has freed itself of the clause that “state property is
sacred and inviolable”. However, section 12 of the constitution
stipulates, “Socialist public property is sacred and inviolable”.10

(2) I believe the Draft has the following problematic and wrong
clauses:11 (a) Section 7 says, “Registered institutions mustn’t engage
in the following activities: 1. demanding an assessment of immovable
assets”. How should one handle the cases in which the property owners
haven’t reported truthfully or have reported fraudulently? How then can
we establish corruption and bribery charges under the criminal code in
cases that involve substantial wealth of unknown origin?

(b) Section 25 says, “The registration fee for immovable assets must not
be proportional to their surface areas, volumes or prices …”. So, should
the registration fees for a dangerous derelict building be the same as
for a villa? Should the registration fee of a tiny plot of land
allocated [to a household for cultivation] under the rural
responsibility system be the same as that for a thousand mu of vegetable
fields? It is so clear that this is an attempt to protect the interests
of the rich!

(c) Section 55 says, “The ownership of public facilities such as roads,
electricity, communications and natural gas should, according to law,
belong to the state …” This is in effect a loud appeal for further
privatisation! Everything can be privatised from now on! This is because
only those items decreed in the law belong to the state. Using logical
elimination, the law can decree any object of property rights as not
belonging to the state! In defending the interests of the nation, this
section doesn’t even match up to [the practice under] capitalism!

(d) Section 56 says, “State institutions own, have the right of
deployment and have the right to deal with [dispose of] the immovable
and movable assets under their direct control …”. Property owned by the
entire citizenry—i.e. state property—is property communally held. So
unless state institutions are authorised by extraordinary legislation,
they have no authority to deal with state assets!

(e) Section 58 says, “In enterprises established with state investment,
where the central or local people’s governments are acting in accordance
with law or executive decrees on behalf of the state investing entity,
they are entitled to all the rights of owners …”. Unless specific legal
authority or concrete (extraordinary) authorisation is granted, the
government has no right to enjoy the property rights of the state! The
owner is the entire citizenry!

(f) Section 72 says, “In the event of serious irresponsible acts that
lead to the bankruptcy of or inflict major losses on state enterprises
or collective enterprises, key managers who are directly responsible for
the enterprises should honour their civil responsibility on this in
accordance with the law as well as their administrative responsibility.
In cases where the criminal law is violated, their criminal
responsibility should also be met …”. Does this mean that responsibility
does not need to be honoured in the case of losses inflicted by
decisions of the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administrative
Commission (sasac) and local people’s governments? Originally, there was
no such thing as “bankruptcy” for publicly owned enterprises under
socialism! Shouldn’t “the sale of state property” by sasac officials be
acts that deserve severe punishment?!

Notes

1. Translated from a Chinese edition of Lenin’s Collected Works, Vol.4,
Renmin Chubanshe (People’s Publishing House), 1972, p. 168.

2. Tael and catty were once standard units of weight in China. One
catty, roughly equivalent to 605 grams, contains 16 taels.

3. The “reform and opening up” policy was adopted by the CPC leadership
in late 1978. It started with de-collectivisation of farming and
liberalisation on the entry of foreign capital, escalating in the 1990s
to more outright measures to reintroduce capitalist logic into the
Chinese economy.

4. The so-called principle of “two unwaverings” was put forward by the
CPC during its 16^th Congress in 2002, stipulating that it “must
unwaveringly consolidate and develop the public sector of the economy”
and “must unwaveringly encourage, support and guide public economic
development”.

5. The Chinese expressions of the four elements of this policy all share
the common character that means “let go”.

6. In June 2005, about 250 residents of a village near Dingzhou city in
Hebei province were physically assaulted after they refused to sell the
use rights of land that the government previously assigned to them for
their cultivation. They found the proposed compensation terms grossly
undervalued, a common problem in China in recent years, resulting in
numerous land disputes between rural citizens and local governments. Six
villagers were killed and about 50 injured during the incident. Two
local senior officials were later charged over the assault.

7. For two days in July 2005, more than 6.6 million square metres of
corn fields were devastated by being sprayed with pesticide after the
farmers of those fields turned down an offer from a local corporation,
acting on behalf of the local government, to acquire land use rights.
The fields are located at the border between Beijing and Huailai county,
which is near Zhangjiakou city in Hebei province.

8. The Civil Guide Book was a comprehensive legal code used by the
Kuomintang, a bourgeois party, which ruled China (in fact sharing power
with many warlords) from the 1920s till 1949.

9. Links’ translation.

10. According to the ICL translation of China’s constitution. See
http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/ch00000_.html.

11. English translations of the Property Law (Draft) are by Links.