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By Root 5459 0

its deeply ingrained culture more than anything else. For the party, this is manifesting itself in the wealth that the political aristocracy is rapidly accumulating, wealth being a necessity to keep their families on top in a market economy. Nobody will ever admit this publicly, but it is quietly accepted that the families of senior Communist Party officials will use their status and connections to quietly build assets. This unspoken practice could be viewed as a permutation of the old Inner Court and Outer Court system that dates back to the Han dynasty two thousand years ago. In those days, the Inner Court was the extended imperial family and its trusted retainers. They had a right to the nation’s wealth and controlled the military and the entities responsible for policing the government bureaucracy, or Outer Court. In China today, the Inner Court is the top several hundred Communist party leadership families that emerged from the revolution and its aftermath. The Chinese military and government watchdog organizations today report to the party, not to the government bureaucracy, the equivalent of the old Outer Court.

Rough Justice

The Chinese government is obsessed with social order and for good reason. With the demise of socialism and the rise of capitalism creating a society of haves and have-nots, China is a social powder keg. I looked Chinese justice in the eye at a death rally in Mangshi, a city of one hundred thousand near China’s southwestern border with Burma. When I was there in the early 1990s, eastern Burma was one huge poppy field and heroin factory, and much of the production was smuggled through China on its way to the United States and Europe. Chinese addiction was rising fast as the contraband spilled across China on its way to the coast. The government’s solution: shoot every drug dealer it finds.

At daybreak, people began streaming into the city’s main sports stadium. A little later a file of police jeeps and motorcycles with screaming sirens escorted a convoy of thirteen army cargo trucks into the stadium. In the back of each truck were two or three prisoners, leaning over the railings with placards detailing their crimes hanging from their necks. The prisoners were lined up, guarded by machine guns atop each truck. The air crackled with the sounds of walkie-talkies.

I stood face-to-face with the prisoners, astonished at how well behaved they were. A woman prisoner arrived alone. She was brought into the middle of the line. A male prisoner tried to say something to her and then I could see why they were all so quiet. The prisoners all had fishing line tied in individual slipknots around their necks. When the man tried to talk, a policeman holding the line quickly choked him. I later learned that the two prisoners were husband and wife. Then the stadium loudspeakers began to boom out the individual death sentences amid cheers from the crowd. Shortly afterward, the prisoners were taken to the edge of town, forced to kneel next to one another, and shot in the back of the head.

Firm control from the top has always been considered the only path to peace and prosperity in China. One reason is that China is a shame-based society, very different from the guilt-based West. In the West, with society’s religious orientation, many controls are internalized. Guilt, which is ultimately the fear of sin and eternal damnation, puts a check on bad behavior. In China, it is the fear of exposure and the accompanying shame that tarnishes the entire extended family. As a result, the Chinese can feel pretty good about doing almost anything as long as they don’t get caught. In that atmosphere, the only efficient form of law and order is a strong and omnipresent government that increases the likelihood of getting caught if you do something wrong.

Global trade, foreign investment, and the commercialization of China’s economy have brought in an extensive body of laws and a constantly improving legal system. But the core philosophy is rule by law, not the rule of law. The blindfolded goddess of justice isn’t part of Chinese