Although there are numerous rights enumerated in China’s Constitution, all of those rights are negated by Article 51, which states: “When exercising their freedoms and rights, citizens of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) shall not undermine the interests of the state.” Those “interests” are all encompassing, but the most important is maintaining the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) monopoly on power. Consequently, China’s constitutional rights are merely “paper rights,” and a grand illusion.
Under paramount leader Xi Jinping, who took over in 2012 as general secretary of the CCP and as president in 2013, the Chinese state’s dominance has been increasing. Article 1 of the PRC’s Constitution, as amended in 2018, explicitly recognizes the dominant role of the CCP: “Leadership by the Communist Party of China is the defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics.” As President Xi declared, echoing Mao Zedong, “Party, government, military, civilian, and academic, north, south, east, west, and center, the Party leads everything.”
A Litany of Paper Rights
The crushing of all human rights under Chairman Mao led to a yearning for liberalization. Two years after his death, the National People’s Congress (NPC) promulgated the 1978 Constitution, which included the “four big rights”: “the right to speak out freely, air … views fully, hold great debates, and write big-character posters” (Article 45). However, after protesters began to openly criticize the CCP, those “rights” were quickly revoked in 1980 by the National People’s Congress, and the Democracy Wall movement ended.
When Deng Xiaoping took over as China’s paramount leader, in December 1978, economic liberalization greatly increased living standards. Yet personal freedoms and human rights remained subservient to state control, as clearly seen in the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square.
The most recent version of the PRC Constitution, promulgated by the NPC on March 11, 2018, continues to pay lip service to human rights, while the CCP under Xi Jinping suppresses the free market for ideas.
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