The NPC plenary on Thursday at the Great Hall of the PeopleProperty Law an Encouragement for Making Wealth: Law Makers
In explaining the draft property law to lawmakers as well as the public, China’s top leader and some experts have been stressing the message that one aim of the law is to encourage Chinese people to create wealth.
Mr. Wang Zhaoguo, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, read an explanation of the property law to a NPC plenary on Thursday, telling around 3000 NPC delegates that the law protects private properties, including legal income, real estate, savings and investments.
“These stipulations,” Mr. Wang said, “are conductive in stimulating people’s initiative to create and accumulate wealth and promote social harmony.”
Similar claims were made by Wang Xiang, who was the first CPPCC member to submit a proposal on drafting a property law back in 2001, during an online-streamed interview with sina.com.cn on Wednesday .
Mr. Wang Xiang said the property law is not about protecting the wealth of those who are already rich, but common people’s motivation to create wealth, including those who are poor for the time being.
This law “is to protect development, protect creation and the spirit of creation, as well as the result [of the creation]. Our country will have hope only when everybody is working hard to create wealth,” Mr. Wang said.
It is noteworthy, however, that the pursuit of wealth is something that was condemned or at least not encouraged in this nation for a long, long time.
Traditional Chinese values, such as Confucius teachings, do not take money making as an honorable goal for a person’s life. The conventional wisdom in China also discourages boasting one’s possession of wealth but prefers hiding it to avoid covet or harm from others. In those decades prior to and during the Cultural Revolution, particularly, being rich was deemed as sinful while “the poorer, the more honorable” was a widely accepted value.
Things have changed dramatically since China started to adopt development-oriented policies after the Cultural Revolution. Today, not only that Chinese people are passionately pursuing material fortune and personal wealth, but the state government is now recognizing and encouraging the pursuit in form of legislation, with the drafting and possible pass of China’s first property law as a significant milestone.
The law defines ownership of the state, the collective and the individual, and grants equal protection to these ownerships, Mr. Wang Zhaoguo explains.
Starting in 1993, drafting of the law has been through seven formal reviews by lawmakers, and the current reading by the on-going NPC session is the eighth review, setting a record in the legislation history of the People’s Republic.
Lawmakers are expected to vote for the law on March 16.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/08/content_5816944.htm
http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-03-07/162612455255.shtml
Highlights
NPC delegates convened on Thursday to review two draft laws on property and corporate tax, respectively. The former addresses granting equal protection to state and private properties, and latter introduces a unified income tax for domestic and foreign-funded enterprises.
The delegates heard the explanation of the property law delivered by Mr. Wang Zhaoguo, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC, and the explanation of the corporate tax law delivered by Finance Minister Jin Renqing.
The two drafts are expected to be voted by the lawmakers on March 16, when the current session ends.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/08/content_5816342.htm
http://www.10thnpc.org.cn/english/BAT/202041.htm
----by Josie Liu
2 comments:
Hello Mrs.Josie Liu ..... I am interested in east asian politics and these are some of questions i have regarding china's economic progress and related issues....
1. I mean SEZ's are any capitalist's dream....As far as my knowledge goes the economic liberalization which they offered was entirely responsible for all the FDI flow...In one word they are the pumping hearts of the life blood on which modern china is thriving and growing......This has also led them to become highly developed infrastructure wise placing them on par with cities like zurich or new york in terms of economy or quality of life...Well this entire capitalist reform was possible entirely because of deng xiaoping's vision....Then Deng should be the true father of modern china.....Why is Mao still revered in modern china when it was deng's vision which made china what it is today?What is chinese government's stance on these so called maoists in nepal etc.?
2. In spite of shanghai being a world city and a mouthwatering hub for outsourcing don't you think some western companies may still shun mainland china(not taiwan or hong kong)...simply because they associate china with mao but not deng? As a chinese what is your opinion on this mao image?
3. Also how would you compare south carolina to say shanghai in terms of infrastructure(quality of life,architecture etc..).......I mean on a scale of 10,how would you compare say new york with shanghai?
sorry for the long comment but i wanted to ask all the questions in my mind at once.......Please do forgive me if i have offended you in anyway with this long post.......It is just an innocent inquiry........
Hey Hari,
I wasn't able to leave you a note in any other way so I post it here.
It is true that Deng Xiaoping's vision brought about an open and vigorously growing China, but please note that Mr. Deng was able to do that only on the condition that China was already an independent country able to make decisions for itself without having to submit to other countries like in the late stage of the Qing Dynasty. So who led the country’s independence struggle and won? It was Mao Zedong.
It is pretty much like developing one’s home. There has to be a home to be built at first, and then we can talk about renovating it and upgrading its conditions. In China’s case, Mao Zedong was the one who built the home—the People’s Republic of China—in the first place, and Mr. Deng later took it over and started to further modernize it. Although people from other countries may have different opinions about Mao Zedong, I think they were both brilliant leaders. In fact, I think Chinese people and government is associating today’s China more with Deng, purposefully or not, while Mao Zedong is gradually becoming a historical reference.
Also, to learn more about Chinese people’s struggles for independence and Mao’s role in the revolution, you may read the book, Red Star over China, by Edgar Snow.
About Shanghai, sorry, I’ve never been there. But according to my observation of Beijing and other US big cities, including New York, Beijing still lacks behind in terms of infrastructure, city management and basic standard of people’s public behavior. Maybe Shanghai is better? Then good for it.
Thanks for stopping by my blog.
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