‘Investigation into Special Issues’; and ‘Deliberation and Decision on Proposals for
Removal from Office’.
21
With this sword in hand, some Chinese legislatures did surprise the public.
On 24 October 2006 in the twenty-fourth meeting of the Standing Committee
of the twelfth People’s Congress of Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan province,
the government’s answer, entitled Report on Actions to Resolve the Problems of
Public Health Care with Respect to the Least Well-off Groups Petitioned by
Representatives of the People’s Congress, was unpredictably rejected by the Stand-
ing Committee of Zhengzhou’s legislature. The Standing Committee concluded
that the report was full of vogue words, and ‘if the government has truly attached
importance to the issue, there is no problem impossible to resolve’. We neither
anticipate that the administrations can be easily tamed, nor know that they can
subordinate themselves to Chinese legislatures in the near future. But with this
progress, the executive branch of Chinese governments should be more cautious in
keeping themselves in line with the law with and public opinion, and this point can
also be illustrated by the second case.
Despite supervision from the legislatures, the administrations are also confronting
challenges from public opinion that has been supplied with ammunition by the
Regulation on Open Government Information that was issued on 5 April 2007 .Thisis
the first nationwide regulation to protect the freedom of information of the public.
Before the 2007 statute, there was no law to combat the government’s intention to
hide its secrets and scandals. Jamie Horsley rightly attributes the Chinese authorities’
move towards ‘open government’ to the following developments: (a) rural areas’
demand since the 1980 s for greater transparency from their local heads, or the ‘open
village affairs’ movement; (b) rapid economic growth; (c) the information-technology
revolution; and (d) China’s 2001 commitment to the World Trade Organization
(WTO).^22 Against this background, the 2007 statute gives the public a tool with which
to fight officials behind curtains. One famous case is that relating to a controversial
paraxylene (PX) plant in Zhangzhou, a city in Fujian province. The construction was
deemed by local residents to be a threat to the city, as a copy of the official environ-
mental impact assessment had been leaked. Due to an influential protest, the citizens
successfully forced the government to have the plant relocated. This achievement was
widely praised by Chinese constitutionalists, as people could now use governmental
information to confront governmental arbitrariness.
Our third case, which is another success for the ‘government of law’, was
achieved by Hunan – the first province to promulgate an administrative procedure
and a provincial guideline for ‘government of law’. The administrative
(^21) Law of the PRC on Supervision by the Standing Committees of the People’s Congresses at
All Levels.
(^22) Jamie Horsley, ‘Toward a more open China?’, in Ann Florini (ed.),The Right to Know:
Transparency for an Open World(New York: Columbia University Press, 2007 ), pp. 54 – 91.