The Biggest Rubber Stamp

Leader
The Guardian, Saturday March 3, 2007

The largest parliament in the world opens in Beijing on Monday. The National People's Congress has 3,000 delegates, but lasts for only 10 days a year and has never rejected a government budget or bill. A true reflection of Chinese-style "democracy", the congress is huge, showy and toothless. The real decisions await the autumn, when the 17th congress of the Communist party opens. Old habits die hard.

But this rubber-stamp parliament will be keenly watched. Top of the agenda is a "property rights bill", seven years in the drafting, which would contentiously give private firms equal status with state enterprises. Opponents say it rolls socialism back too far, and that it will protect the ill-gotten gains corrupt officials have made out of privatisations. Supporters say it is the indispensable next step in a transition that is producing unprecedented prosperity.

The measure's likely passage should not delude the outside world that China is now set on major political change. Earlier this week an article attributed to Premier Wen Jiabao in the official People's Daily warned China against running ahead of itself. It argued that the country "must stick with the basic development guideline" appropriate for the primary stages of socialism "for 100 years". It does not necessarily follow that democracy is a full century away, but the argument is a reminder that political change is likely to continue to lag economic reform for some time yet.

Wen's pronouncements matter because he has been tasked with preparing the ground for the all-important party congress. They corrected the impression given by a number of reformist voices that China is about to democratise swiftly. One has said that democracy could lessen the social tensions of industrialisation; another that China could become a Scandinavian-type social democracy.

But if damping down expectations is one of Wen's tasks, another is showing that China's society and politics are not fossilised, so one of the proposals that the delegates will consider next week is for "modifications" (of what type is not known) to the system allowing the police to send suspects to labour camps without trial. "Re-education through labour" has been in place since 1957 and has been widely used to detain dissidents and religious activists for stretches of up to four years.

The most powerful motor for reform may not be the stirrings of an industrial workforce, or rural turmoil over the dwindling stock of arable land, but the need to clear the decks before the 2008 Olympics. Either way, the coming year will be a critical one for China during which it will become clearer how bold the leadership is prepared to be in contemplating change.

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