Reform means maintaining stability

Maintaining stability is an important government mission, and the government should change how it maintains stability as soon as possible to adapt to current social conditions, says an article in Study Times. Excerpts:

Maintaining stability is a controversial concept in China. The government can use all means it deems necessary to create a stable environment to implement its policies, rules and regulations, even if some of the government's decisions are sometimes against laws.

China has maintained quick economic growth for more than 30 years, but the means of maintaining stability have remained unchanged for a long time. Some of the measures used to maintain stability are actually causing instability. The government should reflect on why that is.

First, many cases exposed by the media show local governments that are closely linked with enterprises coming into conflict with local residents in cases of environmental pollution or appropriating lands, which are the two most troublesome areas of peoples' discontent.

Polluting enterprises usually have local governments behind them because of their contribution to economic growth. Local governments rely heavily on land transfers to boost revenues. Naturally, governments do not side with residents in such cases, so the people are left to defend their own rights and interests.

Second, the people do not have sufficient channels to express their voices and safeguard their interests. And people do not trust the judicial organs to help them win lawsuits against powerful enterprises and governments.

The government should realize that the economic growth provided by polluting enterprises has a heavy debt that will be repaid in the future in various forms.

In the process of making public policies, the government should respect the common people's opinions and establish proper channels to seek advice from the people.

In the long run, China should rebuild people's trust with its judicial systems and all governments should exercise power by law.

The human-oriented and scientific development already points out the direct direction of China's future development path. Governments of various levels should transform their mindsets and show more respect to the people and the laws.