Comment by seanmcdirmid
19 hours ago
China has a constitution mostly like America’s, freedom of speech, religion, press are enshrined even more strongly than in the American constitution. What China lacks is judicial review and an independent judiciary, so the constitution has no enforcement mechanism, and so is meaningless. The Chinese government as formed has no interest in rule of law.
Not exactly.
The Chinese constitution, in addition to endowing rights, also endows obligations.
So while you have things like: > Article 35 Citizens of the People’s Republic of China shall enjoy freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, procession and demonstration.
You also have things like: > Article 54 Citizens of the People’s Republic of China shall have the obligation to safeguard the security, honor and interests of the motherland; they must not behave in any way that endangers the motherland’s security, honor or interests.
It doesn't matter because the law is completely at the mercy of officials to interpret and enforce. A Chinese court was once asked to clarify contradicting interpretation from officials, and they got seriously beat down for it because it isn't the job of the judiciary to tell the officials how to interpret law. The only way an officials ruling is overturned is if their boss (or someone up the hierarchy) disagrees.
Compare this to the Supreme court, which is supposedly in Trump's hands, ruling against Trump twice on this tiktok ban alone (the first to kill his executive order, and the second to not pause the law to wait for him to take office).