Fordham Law Professor Carl Minzner was quoted in an article published in ChinaFile about the show trials of four legal activists in Beijing.
He spoke with Neysun A. Mahboubi, who is a researchsScholar of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania, and Matt Schiavenza, who is a China-focused writer and journalist.
“My basic take is that in terms of law and politics, I think China is clearly moving into a darker era. Naturally when I say that, the first thing people think about is the increasing state repression that is being directed at a range of actors: civil society activists, public interest lawyers, journalists and the like, etc. China is experiencing the most sustained domestic political repression crackdown since Tiananmen Square.”
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“Rather, when I say that China is actually entering a darker era, I mean that what we’re seeing is the steady erosion of the authoritarian rules of the game that have held sway since the beginning of the reform era.
“For all the problems associated with the existing regime, as some of those other things start to give way, you’re going to see something potentially much, much worse emerge.”
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“I think the overall trajectory of Beijing’s efforts is to figure out tools by which it can re-centralize control over the system. Chinese authorities are interested in figuring out how to make courts more independent from local interest groups, even if there is no interest in making them independent from Party control.
“The other point I would make is that China is not a monolith; there are many people in the system speaking with different voices. Certainly what’s happened since 2012 within the Supreme People’s Court, is that the legal technocrats have been put back in control, and so you’re seeing a different set of policies that are being pursued within the court system itself.”