Much of the media attention surrounding China’s recently concluded Fourth Plenum decision has understandably focused on the topic of the party’s approach to law. While the fourth plenum of any Central Committee has traditionally focused on such “party building” topics, it is worth underscoring that they also contain important instructions for every other policy topic. For example, Hu Jintao designated the expansion of international propaganda a major strategic task in 2003, a task the Fourth Plenum of the Sixteenth Party Congress carried the following year. The same 2004 plenum-decision document also carried the strategic directive to “contain Taiwan independence,” an important adjustment that would define PRC policy towards Taiwan for years to come.
Because of the strong linkages between domestic and foreign policy, analysis of the latter necessitates some analysis of the former for context. Much ink has been spilt on the best way to translate the party’s pursuit of the phrase, “to use law to rule the country” (yifa zhiguo), a central theme of the recently concluded Plenum. As others have pointed out, the party’s interest in bolstering the country’s legal infrastructure stems from its pursuit of a more balanced, sustainable model of economic growth and the development of reliable and efficient government and social services to address the root causes of social discontent.
One way to understand the party’s approach to law for domestic policy is to thus recognize that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seeks the development and enforcement of laws and institutions under the conditions that these: 1) serve the party’s political objectives; 2) reflect values that reinforce the legitimacy of the CCP’s authority and its political system; and 3) enable China’s leaders to retain final say over the enforcement of the laws. Because of the important implications for foreign policy, these points merit closer examination.
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