May 06
Last year, specifically last summer, was an inflection point.. some say a tipping point.. for China. news stories surrounding Taihu, Slave labor, product safety, and cardboard dumplings had a huge effect on China’s policy makers.
It is something that I have covered on a number posts on All Roads (Summer 2007: A Catalyst for Environment Change in China and The Real Meaning of Public Hearings in Xiamen), on Crossroads (Xiamen PX: A Turning Point?, and The Relationship Between Pollution and Unrest) , and in presentations
and the Xinhua article Making all draft laws public, a new step to improve legislation quality is in my mind another step in the right direction for China, and China’s policy making mechanism.
Stumble it!
May 6th, 2008 at 8:54 am
One must remember what happened at the “Let hundreds of flowers bloom” campaign, when figuring out what “Making all draft laws public” means. It could well be that the Chinese government wants to know what the people want, or to weed out the oppositions early on.
May 7th, 2008 at 2:02 am
Levin,
Very true. Where I see this as different than before is that rather than be a lot of top down campaigns occurring as the sole catalyst.. or public element.. .society as a whole has a much larger role.
they are taking walks, being invited to openly discuss their views at investment boards, and the media is being given a lot of leash as well.
I once gave a presentation called Clean Up or Clean Out, and the steps I see taking place (removal of easy F visas included) feel much more solid that the previous campaigns.
R