This report from the BBC's correspondent details how far from moving slowly towards democracy as the liberal left like to suggest, China is in fact retrenching communist hegemony's over both law and the state.
The Chief Justice, is Mr Wang Shengjun is a party apparatchik who has never been to law school. The slow (and many hoped irreversible) court and legal reform reforms, that had established some concept of the rule of law and primacy of the state constitution, have been cancelled at a stroke, by Mr Shengjun telling China's judiciary to reject the concept of independent courts.
Instead they have been told that they should consider Communist Party interests first, then the people's interests, and finally after all else, constitutional law.
The effects on China have not necessarily been the supine acceptance of this situation that maybe the Chinese Communists expected, with a certain degree of mass resistance
- On the island of Xiamen protests to stop a chemical plant being built near their homes;
- In Shanghai it was the threat of a new railway line that caused the protests;
- In Guangdong, a protest against a planned waste incinerator.
And in each case it was the middle class, those newly rich, those who had apparently benefited from the party's rule, who were taking to the streets. With little or no faith in the courts, the protesters have little choice but to take direct action, if they dare.
Don't let anyone tell you that China is 'like us' (unless their a North Korean), because they are not.
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