National People's Congress needs reforms

SUN WEN GUANG
JINAN, China, Mar. 11

China's National People's Congress, currently meeting in Beijing, is in need of major reforms if it is to be more than just a rubber stamp for the government. The key to reforming the system lies first of all in the direct election of NPC representatives and their empowerment to supervise the administrative and judiciary systems.
The NPC should be equivalent to parliaments in other countries, the vast majority of which are directly elected. China has not yet attained direct elections even to provincial or municipal legislative bodies.
Delegates to the NPC are indirectly elected; standing committee members are elected among the delegates, and presiding group members are elected among the standing committee members. This multi-level indirect election provides enormous space for the ruling party to manipulate and control the Congress. The people who control the meetings turn out to be Party committee members and there are Party members allocated to each discussion group. Therefore, other delegates, such as members of the democratic parties, actors, athletes and scholars, are mere decorations.
Secondly, delegates to the NPC should be full-time. The functions of the People's Congress are to draft legislation and supervise the country's administrative and judicial departments, which are the weakest links in China's political system. Among NPC delegates, 70 percent are reportedly officials from administrative bodies, judicial organs or state-owned enterprises. Such officials should come under the supervision of the NPC, but at present they are its main component.
For the NPC to function properly, delegates should be required to resign from other positions. One cannot be both a referee and a football player at the same time. In addition, like those in democratic countries, our delegates should be full-time in order to be fully committed to their duties.
Thirdly, the number of delegates should be reduced, they should receive salaries for their work, and non-voting delegates should be abolished.
At present there are about 3,000 delegates to the NPC; how can such an unwieldy number hold meetings? At best they can only act as a rubber stamp, manipulated and controlled by the Communist Party.
With fewer people, the NPC could increase its efficiency and reduce costs. The full-time delegates should be paid salaries and provided with assistants and offices.
Currently, all provincial and municipal People's Congresses and political committees have non-voting delegates to the NPC, who are sent by Communist Party committees. The participation of these unelected delegates offers the ruling party a convenient means of controlling the Congress.
Fourth, the system of standing committees, groups and presiding groups should be abolished. Since NPC delegates, and later the standing committee members, are indirectly elected through several rounds of voting, they do not fully represent the people. Nor do the members of the presiding committee represent the people, as they are decided by the organizers of the meetings.
Delegates participate in group meetings at the NPC according to their provinces and cities. Presiding over these groups is either the secretary of the Communist Party or the provincial governor, which serves to secure the leadership position of the ruling party.
Fifth, urban residents and rural residents should have the same voting rights. In China today, rural residents have only one-fourth the voting power of city dwellers. There is one delegate for every 260,000 people in the cities, but only one for every 1 million people in the rural areas.
Sixth, the NPC must be open to the media. The media should be free to report the speeches of the NPC delegates, and to interview them.
Seventh, the duration of the meetings needs to be extended. At present, provincial and municipal level People's Congress meetings are held for only a few days each year, and the National People's Congress meetings are held for around 10 days. China, with its population of 1.3 billion, has a lot of serious problems to discuss and many questions for its government officials.
Finally, people should have the academic freedom to study and to do research on the National People's Congress.
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(Sun Wen Guang is a retired professor from the School of Management at Shandong University in Jinan, Shandong province, China. This article is translated and edited from the Chinese. The original may be viewed at www.ncn.org. ©Copyright 2007 Sun Wen Guang)

Translated by Helen Gao; Edited by Kathleen Hwang