Constitutionalism in China: Changing Dynamics in Legal and Political Debates

By Arjun Subrahmanyan

In March 2003, a new generation of state leaders was promoted in the PRC at the first session of the 10th National People's Congress. Hu Jintao became president, and Wen Jiabao became premier. In the months after his elevation to president, Hu on several occasions made public comments about the desirability of China moving more strongly to embrace rule of law practices, supporting the rights of ordinary citizens that are guaranteed under the law, and initiating a more thoroughgoing decentralization of political decision-making to meet the challenges facing the country's rapidly changing economy.

The perceived progressivism of Hu and other new leaders led international observers to pin their hopes for reform on such younger party members who grew up in the reform period that began with Deng Xiaoping's reforms of 1978. To optimists, it seemed that China might be preparing to liberalize its political structure to an unprecedented degree, which would drive the emergence of a new China.