procedure was enacted by the Hunan People’s Congress as a local regulation,
which has provided directives for administrations of all levels in Hunan.
An innovative chapter of that regulation is ‘Procedure to Make Administrative
Decisions’. The chapter requires administrations to consult experts as well as the
public before making their decisions. At internal meetings, administrations’ legal
sectors are asked to provide evidence stating the legality of potential decisions.
In fact the Constitution and other constitutional Acts merely accentuate that
‘democratic centralism’ is the principle applied in making administrative
decisions.^23 As a result, Hunan province’s procedure, to some extent, has made
significant progress in restraining administrative heads’ arbitrary powers.
To conclude briefly, we believe that these examples have given Chinese consti-
tutionalists hope that some provinces may pioneer China’s long march towards
‘government of law’, and the other provinces will follow under pressure from both
the public and the central government.
Human rights
Human rights protection has been enhanced by the Chinese authorities in this
decade too. Of interest to many is whether China will be a model for ‘the rest’ and
a threat to the West.
24
Indeed, China has long proclaimed that its concept
of human rights protection is different and sometimes even superior to that of
the West.
In China’s white papers issued in 1991 , 1995 , 1997 , 1999 , 2000 , 2001 , 2004 , 2005
and 2010 , the Chinese authorities have emphasised that their policy priority with
respect to human rights protection is ‘the people’s rights to subsistence and
development’. The Chinese authorities regard the country’s rapid economic
growth as their most stunning success, which underpins any development with
respect to human rights protection. This idea came from China’s modern historical
experience, which tells the nation that social chaos and economic underdevelop-
ment took any chance of political progress away. In this sense, China did make a
difference. For example, since 1949 people’s life expectancy has increased from
thirty-five years to around seventy. In the first decade of the twenty-first century the
age has climbed to seventy-three, which record even outstrips some developing
countries in Europe. Other successes are: higher literacy rates, relatively low crime
rates, and improved gender and ethnic equality. We hence appreciate China’s
‘relative success in most areas within limits of resources and other constraints’.
25
(^23) For the concept of ‘democratic centralism’ see S. Angle, ‘Decent democratic centralism’
( 2005 ) 33 Political Theory 518.
(^24) Randall Peerenboom,China Modernizes: Threat to the West or Model for the Rest?
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007 ).
(^25) Randall Peerenboom,China Modernizes, pp. 129 – 62.