Zhou Yongkang and the recent police reform in China.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Date: 01 August 2005
• Published date: 01 August 2005
• Author: Fu Hualing

This article is an attempt to understand the conflicting imperatives of police reform and the underlying constraints affecting it in a one-party state. When China entered the 21st century, police abuse of powers was a conspicuous national problem. Facing mounting public outcry, as crystallised in the series of scandals before 2003, the police, under the leadership of the powerful new Minister, started a nationwide campaign to control police abuses. The article analyses the competing explanations for police abuses in China and the conflicting demands placed on the police in China's social and economic transition. The article concludes that the ultimate restriction on police reform in China is its politicisation. As long as China remains an authoritarian state, which uses police to maintain its political stability, the police will still be unable to be truly responsive and accountable to public need.

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Since 1978, the police in China have undergone continuous reform. The scope of the reform is broad, covering not only the relationship between the police and the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the substantive and procedural aspects of police powers, and the mechanisms of accountability, but also police budget allocation and internal organisations. While these reform programs vary in their speed, scope and intensity, they have become a constant, perpetual and permanent feature of the police in post-Mao China. Police reform intensified when Zhou Yongkang, a powerful leader of the CCP, became the Minister of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) in late 2002 and started his crusade against police abuse of power. His crusade gained greater impetus in 2003 as a result of several police scandals.

Police abuse of powers was a conspicuous national problem in China at the start of the 21st century. Largely due to the frequent exposure of police scandals on China's active Internet, the police became the least liked institution in China and frequently ranked at the bottom of all government institutions. The public treated police with ridicule and hostility. Like police in other societies in transition (Shelley, 1996; Wolfe, 1992), China's police have been experiencing an identity and legitiraacy crisis.

This article is an attempt to understand the conflicting imperatives and the underlying constraints affecting police reform in a one-party state. Through the examination of the continuing police reform under Zhou Yongkang, the article analyses the demands placed on the police in China's social and economic transition as well as the competing explanations for police abuse. This article also studies the process by which the police strategically use police scandals to manipulate public opinion to their own institutional interests, and effectively turn police reform into police empowerment.

Police Reform in a One-Party State

There are competing imperatives in reforming China's police. On the one hand, continuing social and economic reforms over the past 20 years have placed increasingly heavy pressure on the political and legal systems. While the political and legal institutions have undergone significant changes during the reform years, these institutions, the police included, are strained and barely able to adapt to the vibrant economy and society today. Social and economic progress in China has given rise to an increasing demand for professionalism, institutional autonomy and procedural justice in the criminal justice system and to a growth in the general public cognisance of their rights. On the other, China remains a Communist authoritarian state, and ultimately, the CCP rules by force. The police play a critical role in maintaining social order and political stability under the CCP rule.

Over the past two decades, the police have undergone important reform. First, the CCP has been distancing itself from the police, allowing police professionalism and autonomy to grow. Broadly, the nature and functions of the police are being shifted from police suppression under a dictatorship to law enforcement and public services. The rhetoric of police as a dictatorial instrument of the CCP is openly criticised as leftist and there is a consensus that as society becomes more pluralistic, the role of the police needs to be diversified (Brewer et al., 1996; Fu, 1994; Tanner, 2005).

As the CCP shifts its priority from revolution to modernisation, the police are bound to play a supporting role in protecting economic development. Power is being redistributed within the CCP's political and legal portfolio, and the political status of the police has been declining. The direct result is that the police have become less influential within the political and legal system and have gradually become more accountable to other legal institutions, such as the procuratorate and court.

The CCP is well aware of the broad police powers, the prevalence of the abuses, and the strong public anger and hostility toward the police, and has taken several decisive measures to control the police over the last two decades. It has restricted the jurisdictions of the police in political, economic and moral matters; placed limits on the extensive powers of detention; imposed procedural constraints on police powers; and created limited rights for criminal suspects and their legal advisors. The CCP has also given the procuratorate and the court limited supervisory powers over the police and allowed citizens certain legal remedies against police abuse of powers through judicial reviews and state compensation (Chen, 2004; Fu, 1994, 2001).

China is developing a regularised policing and criminal justice system, in which the emerging bureaucratic system operates according to legal procedures and institutional positions. This system, despite the drawbacks and abuses, is characterised by relative institutional autonomy and increased professionalism. Police powers are increasingly contained and police are made accountable to constitutional and legal institutions. The growing economy is creating a middle class and a vibrant society that demands rights. International pressures, through the mechanism of the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and others, will, in the long term, add momentum to the development of accountable and democratic policing.

There is, however, an arbitrary policing and criminal justice system, alongside the regularised system, which is periodically superimposed by the CCP on the routine criminal justice process. When that occurs, the criminal justice institutions, police in particular, lose their institutional autonomy, and the institutional mandate gives way to the political imperatives. There is a sudden political takeover of the criminal justice system.

Political control of the police is a key feature in Communist states (Bayley, 1985). Police are a highly politicised institution in China and put under the CCP's 'absolute' leadership (Fu, 1994). While the police may have been able to develop a limited degree of autonomy, they are still in the firm grasp of the CCP. The CCP controls the appointment of the chief of police and his management team, determines the priority of police work and sets the agenda in police work. Whenever the CCP perceives that crime and disorder are posing threats to social stability and challenging the Party's legitimacy, it will mobilise the police to act swiftly and harshly to combat these challenges, disregarding most of the legal requirements developed by the routine system (Tanner 2000; Trevaskes, 2003). The police have traditionally performed this role and can be expected to maintain this role in the future.

The Minister, the Scandals and the Reform

Zhou Yongkang holds multiple key positions within the CCP and the government, unprecedented in post-Mao China. A powerful Minister in the MPS is important in three aspects. First, he has access to key CCP/State leaders so that his reform agenda and policies would be endorsed by the highest authorities in China. Public security has been a sensitive issue, especially when stability is the overriding consideration. Important reform involving the police will need the endorsement of the highest authority before implementation, and this necessitates direct and efficient communication between the MPS and the higher authorities.

Second, police reform touches upon a wide range of issues and requires coordination and support from other central institutions, if only to avoid possible intransigence. Key to China's legal structure of the criminal justice system is institutional pluralism, in the sense that no institution is superior to the others. The Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Supreme People's Court could exert meaningful control over the police if the laws were to be closely followed. Reform of the police will inevitably affect other institutions and a powerful Minister could prevent the other institutions from interfering with the reform process.

Third, and most importantly, centrally made reform policies need to be enforced at the local level. The political...