Pitman B. Potter

Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China

This article examines the regulation of religion in China, in the context of changing social expectations and resulting dilemmas of regime legitimacy. The post-Mao government has permitted limited freedom of religious belief, subject to legal and regulatory restrictions on religious behaviour. However, this distinction between belief and behaviour poses challenges for the regimes efforts to maintain political control while preserving an image of tolerance aimed at building legitimacy. By examining the regulation of religion in the context of patterns of compliance and resistance in religious conduct, the article attempts to explain how efforts to control religion raise challenges for regime legitimacy.

The Chinese Legal System: Continuing Commitment to the Primacy of State Power

On the 50th anniversary of the founding of the PRC, the legal system plays an increasingly significant role in social, economic and even political relationships. Legal norms drawn largely from foreign experiences have been selected and applied through a plethora of newly established institutions. The role of law as a basis for government authority has become a legitimate and significant issue in the broader political discourse. Despite these achievements, law in China remains dependent on the regimes policy goals. Particularly where political prerogatives are at stake, legal requirements appear to pose little restraint on state power. In this sense, the ten years that have passed since Tiananmen appear to have had little impact on the willingness of the party-state to dispense with legal requirements in pursuit of political expediency. If we are to rely upon Diceys dictum on the rule of law being in effect when the state becomes just another actor, the rule of law in China still seems a distant prospect indeed.

Riding the Tiger: Legitimacy and Legal Culture in Post-Mao China

Efforts at legal reform in China under the banner of the socialist legal system ( shehui zhuyi fazhi ) represent an attempt by the post-Mao regime to rest legitimacy in part on an ideology of formal law that complements the regimes efforts at economic reform. While the Party has not abandoned its reliance on the conceit that it represents the forces of historical revolution, the establishment of the socialist legal system is aimed to some extent at addressing a more immediate challenge of retaining legitimacy in the eyes of a populace for whom abstract notions of historical determinacy have little meaning. Proponents of reform have linked these abstract and practical aspects of legitimacy by asserting that legal reform is a requirement of the specific stage of historical development in which China now finds itself.

Foreign Investment Law in the People's Republic of China: Dilemmas of State Control

The legal regime for foreign investment in the Peoples Republic of China over the past 15 years has reflected a basic tension between encouraging foreign business activities and maintaining state control over them. While Chinas policies may be viewed as attempts to pursue an independent path towards development, neo-classical and critical perspectives on the role of the state in economic development provide useful contexts within which to view the PRCs efforts at harnessing foreign investment in pursuit of economic growth. This article reviews the structure and performance of foreign investment law and policy in the Peoples Republic of China in the context of these alternative approaches to the role of the state in economic development.

China and the International Legal System: Challenges of Participation

During the past decade, the Chinese government has pursued greater engagement with a range of international legal regimes. Chinas expanded participation in international regimes for trade and human rights, for example, can provide deeper understanding of the factors influencing Chinas international behaviour. Building upon scholarly perspectives about institutional compliance with treaty texts and the influence of local conditions on Chinas policies and practice, this article examines Chinas participation in international legal regimes for trade and human rights in light of dynamics of normative engagement and the paradigm of selective adaptation. Normative tensions help explain Chinas policies and practices on compliance with the WTO trade regime, while the imperative of normative engagement helps explain much about Chinas international human rights diplomacy.

The Legal Implications of China's Accession to the WTO

Chinas application for accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) raises particular questions about the implications for Chinas legal system. This article examines these issues by reference to Chinese contexts and perspectives, and by examining the processes of accession and what these mean for further legal reform. It concludes with a discussion of possible approaches that might prove useful in managing Chinas relationship with the world trading system.

Socialist Legality and Legal Culture in Shanghai: A Survey of Getihu

This paper presents an analysis of attitudes among independent business operators (getihu) in Shanghai toward basic tenets of legal reform in the Peoples Republic of China. Based on a survey questionnaire administered during the summer of 1993 with the assistance of the Law Institute of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, this paper suggests that the getihu are generally receptive to official norms about equality, justice, and private law relations. Despite having doubts about the efficacy of these norms , the getihu seem motivated by factors of disenfranchisement to accept them as useful in their struggle to get ahead. This suggests that the linkage between legal reform and economic development in China is not automatic, but will depend on the particular conditions of legal and economic actors. This has implications generally for the importance of local conditions in causal links between forms of private law and economic development .

4 June and Charter 08: Approaches to Remonstrance

This article will examine the dissident human rights document circulated in China under the title ‘Charter 08’ by comparison with the 4 June 1989 democracy movement as exercises of popular remonstrance. The document entitled ‘Charter 08’ juxtaposes continued deprivation of human rights in China with continued reliance on ineffective and corrupt institutions of the rule of law and concludes that China has many laws but lacks the rule of law. Charter 08 offers a series of principles and policy proposals for wide-ranging legal and political reform, from constitutional reforms to a proposal for a truth and reconciliation process that will confront the tragedies of China’s political history and build a foundation for future unity. The 4 June democracy movement in Beijing and other cities in China centred on similar concerns around political and legal reform — particularly the need to curb corruption and build institutional restraints against abuse of power by officials. This article will examine similarities and differences between Charter 08 and 4 June as a way to further understanding of the potential legacy of Charter 08 in the discourse of political and legal reform in China.

People's Republic of China Provisional Regulations on Art Import and Export Administration

Chinas increased interaction with the global community has led to significant changes in art and artistic expression. The China art market is expanding by leaps and bounds, and artists are subject to an increasingly broad range of influences. Not least of these are the discourses of artistic criticism, with targets that range from international financial institutions to domestic policies. Art in China has for millennia been used as a vehicle for political criticism. Among early examples are the bamboo and landscape paintings of the Yuan dynasty that conveyed a sense of whimsical alienation from the affairs of formal society—implicitly a critique of Mongol rule. During the revolutionary period prior to 1949, the Communist insurgency encouraged painters like Shi Lu to enliven popular resistance to Japanese imperialism and against Chinas Goumindang rulers.

China’s Performance on International Treaties on Trade and Human Rights

China’s increased involvement in global affairs invites consideration of China’s participation in the international legal system. An important dimension of this involves China’s performance on international treaty obligations. Legal performance in respect of treaties involves broader questions around whether local legal practices satisfy expectations embodied in treaty standards. Quite apart from the question of compliance, treaty performance concerns the relationship between treaty-related legal behavior and the normative and operational expectations associated with treaty text and practice. This chapter examines China’s treaty performance in respect of international trade and human rights standards.