1,000 Chinese Lawmakers Balk at Official Measure

China’s legislature, ending a 16-day annual session Tuesday, marked a new milestone toward a more open political system when more than 1,000 delegates refused to endorse a bill submitted to them.

The bill, which would grant lawmaking powers to the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone adjacent to Hong Kong, passed all the same, with the support of 1,609 delegates. But the event marked the first time in the legislature’s history that a significant percentage of delegates failed to support a decision in a public vote.

The National People’s Congress, whose role is to discuss and approve decisions taken by the ruling Communist Party Politburo, used to give unanimous public endorsement to all draft laws and resolutions presented to it. Last year, in what the official Chinese media treated as a major step forward for political reform, a tiny minority of delegates spoke and voted against various decisions.

Somber, Cautious Mood

This year’s session unfolded in a somber mood of concern about problems that have cropped up in the course of China’s economic reforms, especially the acceleration of inflation, which ran at an official rate of 26% in 1988. Before the session began, delegates were privately instructed to keep any criticisms within rather narrow limits. In general, there was less of an atmosphere of free-wheeling discussion than during last year’s congress.

It was not entirely clear Tuesday whether the unprecedented number of negative votes and abstentions on the Shenzhen bill was primarily an orchestrated attempt at making a show of democracy, or whether it constituted a rebellion by delegates upset about procedural shortcomings. It appeared to have elements of both these factors, rather than being a protest against the actual contents of the bill.

Before the vote was held, Huang Shunxing, a former legislator in Taiwan who now lives in China and is a congress delegate, stepped to a microphone in the auditorium of the Great Hall of the People to argue that the handling of the bill did not follow proper procedures.

First to Argue Publicly

Huang also created a stir at last year’s session when he became the first delegate in the body’s history to publicly argue, in the presence of foreign media, against a proposed decision. The issue last year involved a minor personnel question, and the vote went nearly 2,900 to 8, with 69 abstentions, against the position favored by Huang.

This year, Huang won not only applause but also votes in apparent support of his arguments. A total of 274 delegates raised their hands to cast negative votes on the Shenzhen bill. A moment later, in the most dramatic moment of the entire congress session, 805 delegates raised their hands to abstain.

Legislative and party leaders sitting on the huge auditorium’s stage--including congress Chairman Wan Li, moderator of the session--appeared surprised and slightly unsettled by the massive number of abstentions, which created the image of a sea of hands previously seen only on affirmative votes.

The Shenzhen bill authorizes the special zone, adjacent to Hong Kong, to enact its own laws suitable for a market economy. Delegates appeared to be upset by a number of technical questions concerning the proper way to grant this power to Shenzhen. Among the issues involved was whether the National People’s Congress or the Guangdong Province People’s Congress is the proper body to grant this authority, and whether such authority may be given before Shenzhen has established its own people’s congress.

Huang, the only delegate to speak on the subject from the floor, stressed in an interview after the congress that his objection was based on procedural issues.

“It’s not permitted to do things this way,” he said. “It’s not a question of whether the contents are good or bad. The legal procedure wasn’t correct.”

The eight other resolutions and laws presented to the congress Tuesday, including a law setting rules for lawsuits against government agencies, were approved with overwhelming majorities.

The congress never formally addressed a sensitive issue that various Chinese intellectuals had lobbied for: a proposed amnesty for political prisoners, especially some prominent pro-democracy advocates who have been jailed for about a decade.

Petitions Still Viable

But the official New China News Agency reported late Tuesday evening that a set of petitions in support of amnesty, seized by Tianjin customs officials after being brought to China last week by Hong Kong activists, had been forwarded to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in keeping with the request of the Hong Kong group.

Members of the Hong Kong group, who had hoped to deliver the materials while the full congress was in session, said last week that the petitions had been signed by more than 24,000 people from Hong Kong and 34 countries.

In another development related to the issue of free speech, students at Beijing University put up a poster Monday calling on school authorities to rescind recent “lawless” regulations banning campus gatherings to discuss democracy and political change. The poster, which bore the signatures of 60 undergraduate and graduate students, was torn down Tuesday.