Culture and reform (#104; Topic B)

This morning, in a think-tank-sponsored seminar on "China's Economic Development and Legal Reform," three panelists talked glibly about the need for "judicial review" and "judicial independence" in China. During the Q-and-A period, I rose to suggest that the panel (1) used concepts to assess realities in China, and (2) failed to consider China's history. As to concepts, I said that even USA would have difficulty meeting the "independence" test. As to history, I felt that one panelist, from China, when condemning the state's taking away land, should mention that, in China, land is state property and that citizens have only "use rights." As to history to another panelist, a fellow former World Bank staffer, I indicated that (a) China used to have traveling judges to evaluate decisions rendered by resident judges, and (b) in China, justice is more a moral issue than a legal issue. On the way home, while reading the 3/13/06 issue of Time, an essayist, in confessing "What I Got Wrong About the [Iraqi] War," concurred with three "errors" cited by a fellow neoconservative (of the "end of history" fame) in a recent book: (1) "overconfidence about the inevitability of democratic change and its ease;" (2) narcissism, leading to the "abdication of the moral high ground;" and (3) "not taking culture seriously enough." Precisely.
Posted at 10:52 pm, Thursday, March 9, 2006