The main organs of state power are the National People`s Congress (NPC), the President and the State Council. The members of the Council of State include the Prime Minister, a variable number of Deputy Prime Ministers (currently four), five Councillors of State (the same as the Deputy Prime Minister in terms of protocol, but with smaller portfolios) and 29 Ministers and heads of commissions of the Council of State. In the 1980s, attempts were made to separate the functions of the party and the state, with the party determining general policy and the state executing it. The attempt was abandoned in the 1990s, so the political leaders within the state are also the leaders of the party, thus creating a single central place of power. Although the human rights situation in mainland China has improved significantly since the 1960s (the 2004 constitutional amendments explicitly stressed that the state protects human rights), the government remains committed to preventing organized opposition to its regime. Amnesty International estimates that the People`s Republic of China holds several thousand political prisoners. Although illegal, cases of torture by civilian authorities have been reported. Over the past decade, the level of qualification and capacity of agency staff has increased considerably. There is a growing core of smart and skilled people who are committed to finding new and creative ways to combine economic development with environmental protection. They are experimenting with natural resource price reforms, tradable permits for sulphur dioxide, environmental education campaigns, etc. Nevertheless, the central bureaucracy is sorely lacking in staff and funds. There are only 300 full-time employees in Chinese SEPA; By comparison, the U.S.
EPA has more than 6,000. In addition, China`s central budget for environmental protection is still limited to about 1.5 percent of GDP per year, and many analysts believe that much of this budget goes to non-environmental infrastructure projects and other programs. Chinese scientists themselves have estimated that China should spend at least 2% of its GDP per year on environmental protection, just to prevent further deterioration of the situation. The Chinese Communist Party refers to the Chinese system as a “socialist consultative democracy.” According to an article in the Communist Party`s theoretical journal Qiushi, “Consultative democracy was created by the CCP and the Chinese people as a form of socialist democracy. This is not only a commitment to socialism, but also perpetuates China`s political and cultural traditions. It not only represents a commitment to the organizational principles and leadership mode of democratic centralism, but also affirms the role of the public sphere in a democracy. This is not only a commitment to the leadership of the CPC, but also takes into account the role of all political parties and organizations, as well as people from all ethnic groups and sectors of society. [41] [best source needed] China`s forest resources are also among the lowest in the world. The demand for furniture, chopsticks and paper has led to illegal logging that is increasingly profitable but harmful to the environment. In the mid-1990s, half of China`s forest authorities reported that trees were being cut down at an unsustainable rate and that twenty percent had already exhausted their reserves.
China`s Sichuan province, home to the famous pandas, now has less than a tenth of its original forests. Even the worst examples of deforestation in the United States, such as Vermont`s conversion from 70% forest to 30% forest in the last century, are lenient compared to China`s experience. As a result, biodiversity loss, climate change and soil erosion are increasing. With China`s opening of operations as part of ongoing reforms since 1978, the country has become the second-largest economy after the United States, based on purchasing power parity (PPP), according to the World Bank. Reforms of the political environment and legal systems have made it easier to do business in China. There is strong evidence that the government has been involved in the development of the overall business environment since 1978. The Chinese government plans to quadruple GDP and double GDP per capita by 2020. Much of the burden of environmental protection has thus fallen outside Beijing and the central government apparatus.
Responsibility has been decentralized to the local level, with some wealthier regions acting aggressively under the leadership of proactive mayors to address their own environmental needs, while other towns and villages lag far behind. The Government has also encouraged public participation in environmental protection and opened the door to non-governmental organizations and the media, which have become a major force for change in some areas of environmental protection. The international community – through bilateral aid, non-governmental organizations, international governmental organizations and, more recently, multinational corporations – has also played a powerful role in shaping China`s environmental practices. [3]. Harris, D. (2015, January 2). Six business law trends in China for 2015. From www.forbes.com/sites/danharris/2015/01/02/china-business-law-trends-for-2015/ We did an interview with Jerome Cohen on the rule of law in which he talked about the difficult times lawyers experienced under Xi Jinping. But you were very optimistic about the development of the legal profession in China.
What are the prospects for the rule of law in China given the increasing repression under Xi Jinping? China`s legal system has long been criticized for its lack of transparency, ill-defined laws, weak enforcement capacity, and poorly trained lawyers and judges. Over the past decade, however, the government has made great strides on the legislative front, passing more than 25 environmental laws and more than 100 bylaws, as well as hundreds of environmental standards. While the quality of some of these laws can be improved, Chinese environmental lawmakers have shown a growing understanding of how to negotiate and draft technically sound and politically viable legislation. They have also published draft laws and regulations on their websites to invite public comment, which is a significant improvement in the transparency of China`s legal system. Nevertheless, there are many weaknesses within the judicial system, including insufficient or complete training of lawyers and judges, interference by external political or economic factors in judicial decision-making, and difficulty in enforcing poorly drafted laws. Links to the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for general information on the political environment in the country. Poorer regions are also more likely to suffer from a lack of qualified personnel in their local environmental protection offices to conduct inspections and enforce the law. Moreover, local officials in these areas often exert enormous pressure on environmental protection agencies to limit or ignore the fees they try to charge or the fines they want to impose on polluting companies, for fear of hampering economic growth or increasing unemployment[4]. (In some cases, local officials are also shareholders in these local factories.) Even if local environmental agencies manage to close a factory, it is often reopened elsewhere or operated at night. The social, cultural, political and economic consequences of market reform have led to tensions in Chinese society. The government actively opposes foreign government meetings with the 14th Dalai Lama as spokesman for a separatist movement in Tibet. [28].
The Biz of Life: Facts about China (The Biz of Life: Facts about China) thebizoflife.blogspot.ca/2011/02/facts-about-china.html II.