In today’s International Herald Tribune, Carl Minzner wrote:
…… under China’s one-party system. Local Chinese party secretaries exercise sweeping control over the local media, legislatures and courts.Naturally, this breeds corruption and abuse of power. It also means that local party officials can effectively choke off information to Beijing, blinding the central authorities as to exactly how their mandates are carried out.
Some localities have degenerated into private fiefdoms run by local party officials. This has serious consequences for people whose rights have been violated by local officials. Citizens are far from passive. They resort to any and all channels to get redress – lawsuits, petitions, foreign media. But these often don’t work. [Full Text]
Carl Minzner is an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
