Breakthroughs in rule of law

A step toward modern governance

Many interpreted the resolution issued by the Third Plenum of the 18th CPC Central Committee last year, which highlighted the market as a decisive player in economic development, as a vow to deepen the country's economic reform.

The part to which the most importance should have been attached is: China is dedicated to "deepening" reform. To achieve such a goal in the long run, the Party and the central government should give more weight to modernizing both the governance system and its capability to govern.

This was rightly echoed in the Fourth Plenum this year, which pledged to implement modern governance via the rule of law. Hence for the country, this year's plenum marks a key step toward building a modern governance system.

Yet, in practice, two major problems still stand in the way of the rule of law, and these need to be addressed. First, tricky issues left over from the past will haunt the country's leaders if they continue to be left unresolved. The best and only solution to this is to break with the past and solve all the left-over problems once and for all and address emerging ones with the rule of law.

Second, making sure that there are laws to abide by is not enough to improve the relationship between reform and the law. Significant reforms should be launched through the legislature, which involves open discussion and public participation.

Sun Liping, a professor of the School of Social Sciences affiliated to Tsinghua University