From Reuters:
A high-profile Chinese lawyer demanded Wednesday that the government open its books to the public, in an unusually direct display of the legal activism that the Communist Party sees as a growing threat to its rule.
Yan Yiming, an attorney who has made his reputation taking on companies that misled investors, presented an application to the Finance Ministry headquarters demanding that it publish details of its 2008 expenditures and 2009 budget.
China’s ruling Communist Party discloses only the barest outline of its spending plans to a submissive Parliament every year. Yan wants the government to live up to pledges of transparency and accountability, especially with so much of the nation’s faltering economic fortunes now resting on state spending plans.
