China drives home rejection of 'Western' democracy

CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING – The head of China's rubber-stamp parliament

cited Western democracy no less than nine times in a

speech Monday -- to illustrate what the country would not

become.

China will never be a multiparty state with separation of

powers, he said. It will not have an independent judiciary.

Elections will still have mostly government-

approved candidates on the ballot.

The hard line taken by National People's Congress

Chairman Wu Bangguo was an apparent response to

renewed calls for political reform from both inside and 

outside the country.

Observers are taking Wu's speech as a sign of just how

reform-shy the system has become when the global

economic crisis is beating at China's door and a series of

sensitive anniversaries await -- including that of the

bloody 1989 suppression of the Tiananmen Square pro-

democracy protests. Many say the supremely

conservative trend is likely to long outlive the current

crisis.

"I don't see any progress or breakthroughs in the Chinese

political system for a long time to come," said Yu Jie, a

social and political critic whose writings have been

banned for the past five years.

Addressing the congress' annual nine-day meeting, Wu

defended China's one-party communist system and drew

clear distinctions with multiparty political systems in the

West.

China, he said, would never introduce a system of

"multiple parties holding office in rotation," nor would it

allow a separation of powers among the legislative,

executive and judicial branches of government, or a

legislature made up of lower and upper houses.

Though hardly new, his arguments were notably more

extensive than in past. Last year, Wu, the Communist

Party's No. 2 leader, made only a passing reference to

the separation of powers and a bicameral parliament.

Wu also appeared to rule out moves toward greater

judicial independence, saying the all-powerful Communist

Party would continue to dictate standards and priorities

that it expected courts and prosecutors to adhere to.

"The Western model of a legal system cannot be copied

mechanically in establishing our own," Wu said.

Wu's remarks appeared to be a deliberate rebuttal to

critics calling for greater liberalization, including legalizing

opposition parties and direct elections for legislative

bodies.

The boldest such call, known as "Charter '08," began

circulating on the Internet in December and won

endorsements from hundreds of intellectuals and pro-

democracy activists both inside China and overseas. It

declares authoritarian rule on the wane and calls for a

new Chinese constitution, separation of powers,

competitive elections and other hallmarks of Western

democracy.

Authorities have suppressed all mention of the document

in Chinese media while harassing or detaining its drafters

and signatories.

Yet, word of it has spread through overseas reports,

raising among the leadership uncomfortable associations

with similar calls for political liberalization that led to the

fall of communist regimes in the former Soviet bloc, said

Barry Sautman, associate professor of social science at

the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

"I don't think they believe it will make inroads among the

average Chinese, but they may fear its impact on

intellectuals," Sautman said.

Bao Tong, a former secretary to Premier Zhao Ziyang

who was deposed for siding with the Tiananmen student

protesters, said Wu's remarks underscored the

government's complete rejection of its earlier flirtation with

Western notions such as direct elections and separation

of powers.

"They are saying that China will go its own way and reject

the universally recognized achievements of human

civilization, which are human rights, democracy, and the

responsiveness to public opinion," said Bao, who spent

seven years behind bars for leaking state secrets in the

wake of the protests.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Wu also outlined the past

year's work by the NPC's Standing Committee, the 74-

member body that handles legislative business when the

almost 3,000-member NPC is not in session. NPC

members are carefully vetted and mainly serve to discuss

and approve decisions already reached by the party

leadership.

Wu said China aimed to establish a "legal system of

socialism with Chinese characteristics" by next year.

Without explicitly defining that system, Wu reaffirmed the

government's preference for handing down regulations

through administrative fiat rather than allowing laws to

develop through court rulings.

He said top legislative work this year would focus on

drawing up laws covering social programs, such as health

care, pensions and education. Beijing has been pushing

for more spending in those areas to encourage families to

spend their paychecks on goods and services that fuel the

economy rather than on expenses such as medical bills.

轉貼自：

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090309/ap_on_re_as/as_china_politics_3

本文於 修改第 4 次