Maoist attitude to dissent is blocking China's road to the rule of law

Now that China's leadership transition is complete, the world is asking: Where will China's new leaders take the country? Will Xi Jinping and his colleagues live up to the goal of establishing a society under the rule of law?

So far, Xi has been sending mixed signals. He has spoken of tolerance for sharp criticism of the Communist Party, abolishing re-education through labour, and "putting power in an institutional cage" to prevent official corruption. However, he has also counselled party officials against "allow[ing] any subversive errors when it comes to the fundamental issues".

China has also made significant progress in legal reform, but there are stubborn impediments to the rule of law. Chinese courts are still subject to political interference. The Chinese party-state still punishes government critics, charging them with vague crimes like endangering state security, sending them to re-education through labour, or just forcibly confining them to their homes. Local officials detain petitioners in "black jails" to prevent them from voicing their complaints.

Under the Chinese constitution, courts should be independent and citizens are guaranteed the right to free speech and to file petitions. The black jails, soft detention, political interference with judicial decisions, punishment for the exercise of free speech; these all appear to be inconsistent with Chinese law. Are these actions a violation of Chinese law or is there something about the Chinese legal system that outsiders simply do not understand?

Chinese leaders often refer to a "socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics" but what do they mean by "socialist" and what characteristics are "Chinese"? There never seems to be an explanation and we are left to speculate on why China does not seem to follow its own rules, especially when it comes to cases deemed "sensitive". Why does the government impose such harsh punishment on critics who do no more than post critical essays on the internet? Why does the government detain citizens without any apparent legal basis and without due process?

Is it possible that, despite all of the enormous changes in Chinese society, the guiding principle of the party is still the Maoist ideology expressed in the Chairman Mao Zedong's famous 1957 speech "on the correct handling of contradictions among the people"? According to Mao, there are two types of contradictions: those among the people and those "between ourselves and the enemy".