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Already, Xi Jinping’s will must be obeyed. So why are his favourite policies being made into laws?

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With every year, the word of China’s supreme leader, Xi Jinping, is treated more like law. His favourite slogans are printed on red banners and posted on urban streets and highway bridges. Roadside images of his face remain rare, at least outside restive regions like Tibet or Xinjiang. But his name is everywhere, used on billboards extolling his philosophy or instructing citizens to uphold his leadership. His sayings are taught in school textbooks. They are turned into marching lines of metal characters that are erected in fields.

This marks a change. After Mao Zedong died in 1976, ending years of ideological purges and frenzies, party leaders shunned anything resembling a personality cult or one-man rule. Political theories were given anonymous, bland names, like “The Three Represents”. Today, Mr Xi’s injunctions are a staple of everyday life. And in this era of personalised rule, a puzzle presents itself. For even as Mr Xi’s words enjoy edict-like weight, his underlings are busy turning his signature policies into formal legislation.

Recent examples include the Foreign Relations Law, which took force on July 1st. It breaks little new ground, but reflects long-standing party principles as well as global initiatives promoted by Mr Xi. Given that the leader’s will may not be challenged, what is gained by enshrining his policies in stand-alone laws?

Mr Xi’s own words offer a partial answer. One of his cherished slogans is “yifa zhiguo”, or “governing the country according to law”. With those words, he is not promising the rule of law as a liberal reformer might understand it. The party sits above any legal code and even China’s constitution, its powers unchecked by any court. Indeed, Mr Xi denounces judicial independence and the separation of powers as dangerous foreign ideas. Instead, to hear legal scholars explain it, Mr Xi is offering rule by law: ie, professional governance by officials following standardised procedures. At home, the party hopes that this sort of authoritarian rule will enjoy more legitimacy than a previously prevailing alternative: arbitrary decision-making by (often corrupt) officials. As for the outside world, the Foreign Relations Law signals that legal sanctions await those who displease Mr Xi’s China.

Highfalutin theories of governance are only part of the puzzle, however. When asked, ordinary Chinese instinctively call laws important and different from a mere policy or practice. To explore what they mean by this, Chaguan headed to the Red Flag Canal, a vast irrigation project in the central province of Henan, dug through forbidding mountains by farmers and workers in the early 1960s. Mr Xi chose the site for a visit last autumn, just days after he secured his third term as party leader. At the canal he urged youngsters to abandon their “pampered” ways and learn from their forebears, including members of a youth brigade who died digging a tunnel through solid rock. Chaguan visited the canal because it is just the sort of “red tourism” site that the draft Patriotic Education Law singles out for praise.

That law was given its first reading by legislators last month. It is clarifying to ask: why is it needed at all? From kindergarten onwards, young Chinese are taught to love their motherland and the party. It is hard to know how schools could offer much more patriotic education and still leave time for reading or maths. Nonetheless, the legislation is hailed as much needed by official media, and is sure to become law.

On a recent weekday, the Red Flag Canal was thronged with students holding Communist Youth League flags, workers from state-owned companies and briskly marching columns of soldiers. In interviews, visitors quoted Mr Xi’s words about the Red Flag Canal spirit, and his call to “eat bitterness and endure hardship” to build a strong nation. Asked why China needs a patriotic-education law, many offered a version of the same two thoughts. First, a law sets out citizens’ obligations. Without a law, ventured a young woman studying at Henan Agricultural University: “We may have patriotic thoughts, but not show patriotism with our deeds.” Second, a law will allow the unpatriotic to be punished. Legal tools are needed to combat “foreign influences” that the young encounter online, in films or magazines, suggested a middle-school English teacher from Jiangsu, as his wide-eyed pupils crowded around.

These twin explanations match the draft law’s ambitions. It catalogues the many organisations with a duty to promote patriotism, from schools to publishers and religious institutions. Article 16 spells out that parents “shall include love of the motherland in family education” and “co-operate” when their children are offered patriotic-education activities, in and out of school. Then it lists offences to be punished, from insulting the national flag to questioning approved histories about party heroes and martyrs.

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The patriotism-industrial complex

The draft law further instructs local governments to develop sites that inspire patriotism. Even obscure memorials can expect a boost, such as a museum near the Red Flag Canal that honours Gu Wenchang, a long-dead county-level party secretary. Though rather dry, featuring faded photographs of selfless cadres and some old farm tools, the museum attracts over 40,000 visitors a year. Many are on official tours and recite the party oath in a lovely, white-walled courtyard, overlooked by red cliffs topped with green trees. Asked about the new law’s impact, the museum director, Li Hao, hopes to see still more visits. He quotes a Chinese saying about how legislation both guides and binds the masses. “If there is a law, we can follow it. If there is a law, we must follow it,” it runs.

This is a good time to be in the red-tourism industry. To be blunt, Gu Wenchang’s main claim to fame is that he is one of three county-level party secretaries praised by Mr Xi in essays and speeches. The leader’s tributes are reproduced on a plaque at the entrance. For party members, Mr Xi’s words already make this a sacred place. For everyone else, reverence will soon be the law. ■

Read more from Chaguan, our columnist on China:
China’s message to the global south (Jul 6th)
How China sees Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny (Jun 29th)
Xi Jinping reaches into China’s ancient history for a new claim to rule (Jun 15th)

Also: How the Chaguan column got its name

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This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Law with Chinese characteristics”

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China

July 15th 2023

• →China is obsessed with food security. Climate change will challenge it
• →The Chinese are working more hours than ever
• →Another comeback for China’s street merchants
• →Rule by law, with Chinese characteristics

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From the July 15th 2023 edition

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Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

⇒Explore the edition.css-v7aorn{margin-top:0.875rem;}.css-v7aorn +.eq1asik0{margin-top:3rem;padding-bottom:0;}.el1rg701+.css-v7aorn{margin-top:0;}.css-9ejc71{position:relative;border-bottom:0;border-top:0.0625rem solid var(–mb-colour-greyscale-london-85);color:var(–mb-colour-greyscale-london-35);}.css-9ejc71 .ebxshaw0{margin-top:0;}.css-9ejc71 >.e5z0ibw0>*{padding:var(–mb-spacing-md) 0;}.css-9ejc71 >.e5z0ibw0>*:nth-of-type(2){border-top:0.0625rem solid var(–mb-colour-greyscale-london-85);}@media (min-width: 37.5rem){.css-9ejc71 >.e5z0ibw0>*:nth-of-type(2){border-top:0;}}.css-9ejc71 >.e5z0ibw0 .e5z0ibw0{gap:var(–mb-spacing-sm);}.css-yb4x8x{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-items:stretch;-webkit-box-align:stretch;-ms-flex-align:stretch;align-items:stretch;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:flex-start;justify-content:flex-start;}@media (min-width: 37.5rem){.css-yb4x8x{-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;}}@media (min-width: 37.5rem){.css-yb4x8x{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}}@media (min-width: 37.5rem){.css-yb4x8x{-webkit-box-pack:end;-ms-flex-pack:end;-webkit-justify-content:flex-end;justify-content:flex-end;}}.css-1j1j36d{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-flex-wrap:wrap;-webkit-flex-wrap:wrap;-ms-flex-wrap:wrap;flex-wrap:wrap;row-gap:0.6rem;-webkit-column-gap:var(–mb-spacing-sm);column-gap:var(–mb-spacing-sm);}ShareReuse this content.css-169lzn0{position:relative;-webkit-align-self:auto;-ms-flex-item-align:auto;align-self:auto;display:none;}@media (min-width: 80rem){.css-169lzn0{grid-column-start:9;}}@media (min-width: 89rem){.css-169lzn0{grid-column-start:13;}}@media (min-width: 80rem){.css-169lzn0{grid-column-end:13;}}@media (min-width: 89rem){.css-169lzn0{grid-column-end:17;}}@media (min-width: 80rem){.css-169lzn0{grid-row-start:1;}}@media (min-width: 80rem){.css-169lzn0{grid-row-end:span 4;}}@media (min-width: 80rem){.css-169lzn0{display:block;}}.css-169lzn0:last-child::after{height:0;}.css-1y1zooy{display:inline;}.css-1y1zooy >*+*{margin-top:2rem;}.css-1y1zooy >*:only-child{margin-top:1.25rem;}.css-1y1zooy >*:last-child{position:-webkit-sticky;position:sticky;top:1.5rem;}.css-mqgbir{margin-top:6rem;}.css-mqgbir .ds-section-headline{margin-bottom:1rem;}

More from China

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Chinese authorities try to stop parents gaming the exam system (again)

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They will go to great lengths to try

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China’s alarming sex imbalance

By 2027 one in six young Chinese men won’t be able to find a partner

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Behind DeepSeek lies a dazzling Chinese university

It models itself on Stanford, and is in the tech hotspot of Hangzhou

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Panama symbolises the Sino-American struggle for influence

The superpowers use soft and hard power

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Tensions with the West are fuelling China’s anxiety about food supplies

Grain pains are growing

Hail China’s new “ice-and-snow economy”

The country is betting on winter sports and tourism to boost growth in its rustbelt

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Источник: www.economist.com