The Red Dragon's Way of Justice
| Published date | 01 July 1981 |
| Date | 01 July 1981 |
| Author | Raymond Lamont-Brown |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X8105400313 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
RAYMOND
LAMONT-BROWN
THE RED
DRAGON'S
WAY
OF
JUSTICE
China's new Prime Minister, Zhao Ziyang, aged 61, the son of a
wealthy landlord, is leading the country into a new era. What China
is now experiencing is a wholesale renunciation of Left-wing policies
and their replacement by the more pragmatic policies of the Right.
This is combined with a sweeping reorganization of party and
government to prevent a re-emergence of the left as a political force.
It
is a massive U-turn.
A nation ground to submission by Mao is going to find many new
pressures with their new "freedoms".
For
should such a vast nation
"go off the rails" justice would find it difficult to cope especially as
China has no real recognized legal code.
As China's state security system relaxes a little western law officers
are beginning to glimpse facets of Chinese justice: remembering, of
course, that since 1958 all statistics and codes of rules in Zhonghua
Renmin Gongheguo (The People's Republic of China) are State
Secrets.
According to the Chinese news agencies, the country has had its
first armed robbery since the Communists seized power in
1948.
The
increasing number of crimes reported in China's mass dailies has
included a vast amount of crime especially amongChina's privileged
bureaucratsand their families. A recent rape case(for which there is a
death sentence carried out within minutes of judgment) included the
son of a high local municipal official. Again the Quignian Bao
(Youth newspaper) notes that most children of high officials were
honest, yet "there are still riff-raff influenced by feudalist ideas who
take it for granted that since their fathers are high-ranking officials,
they can flaunt the law and ride roughshod over the people".
Newspapers have recently reported the case of one woman found
guilty of embezzling some £150,000 of Communist Party funds. The
Communist Party has cracked down over the last few months on the
"western crime" of padding expense accounts. Peking's municipal
newspaper reported that 153 party officials had been involved in
"theft, bribery and embezzlement, and tax evasion". Pilfering from
building sites has become sowidespread in China thatseveral major
projects have had to be halted.
Taking a lead from the Party Members, the ordinary Chinese
worker is developing his own pattern of crime. Foremost in China
July 1981 297
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