Speaking at the China Forum 2014 held in SMU on Tuesday, Dean of the School of Law at Fudan University Sun Xiao Xia said that the decision by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the 4th plenary session of the 18th Central Committee last month to comprehensively advance the rule of law in China is the breakthrough point for re-launching its political reforms. He said that the decision made at the plenary session, which Sun described as ‘Xi’s brand of rule of law’, attempted to address three difficult issues: rule by law or rule of law, conferment of power or control power, rule by party or rule of law. SMU Associate Professor of Law Henry Gao felt that rule of law and rule by party are incompatible, in the long term, the rule of law would be hard to realise in the absence of democracy. Sun said that China's rule of law will not be identical to that of the West. To accommodate both the rule of law and rule by party, CCP would have to modify the Western concept of rule of law, and would also have to make certain compromises. He noted that "Xi brand of rule of law" is presently only on paper, whether it is feasible upon implementation would depend on how things pan out in the next five years.
Source
Lianhe Zaobao
LHZB_20141127_4.pdf467.29 KB