Political, Legal And Regulatory Environment Of China

Since the start of the 20th century, with the fall of the Qing dynasty, when China was in shambles with no industry, a corrupt government and no international presence, all the way up until today, where China has evolved into one of the strongest internationally recognized countries with a highly globalized market, the relationship between the Chinese people and its government has been debated on whether or not Chinese society is one ruled and dominated by a central government or a society where social change occurred because of bottom-up forces leading to a government for the people. China, since 1949, has been a country, which has been run by a single party state, known as the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). The CCP is organized under the basis of a central, unchallenged party governing the people by the means of communism. Throughout the past century, the CCP has dictated and maintained a rule over the livelihood of its people by monopolizing Chinese politics and penalizing those who opposed it, through central command planning and on the other spectrum, radical economic reforms at the end of the 20th century in the interest of keeping the CCP in power.

Located in Eastern Asia, China is a country known for being a worldwide economic superpower that has had a communist government for several years. Beginning in 1978, China, under Deng Xiaoping’s rule, began to incorporate capitalistic ideas in the government. Deng created various reforms unlike any of the policies or reforms in prior years that began to reconstruct China’s economy through modernization and by establishment of international trade.

China, officially the People’s Republic of China, is a single-party state, meaning there is only one political party. China was founded on January 1, 1912. The per Capita GDP for the country is $5,600. The National People’s Congress elects the president (head of state), currently Hu Jintau. The president nominates the Premier (Head of Government), currently Wen Jiabao. Major political parties include the Communist Party of

Legalism is an ancient Chinese philosophy of administration that believes that humans are more inclined to do wrong than right because they are motivated entirely by self-interest. Shi Huangdi was the founder of the Qin dynasty. After conquering the seven kingdoms in ancient China, he halted the Warring States Period and took the throne as the first emperor of the unified Chinese nation. He ruled on the basis of Legalism. To prevent criticism of his rule, Shi Huangdi ordered that all books that seemed to be useless or against him be burned. This included all poetry from the Chou dynasty and all books written by Confucian scholars. The only books from previous eras that Shi Huangdi let off were the practical ones about medicine and farming. Focusing on the issue of media censorship, the current Chinese government governs in a similar way to the way Qin Shi Huangdi once governed. China still blocks and monitor citizens access to several social media services and shuts down media entertainment programs during government events. While some may see this as an extreme form of censorship, we must consider the fact that several other countries have similar policies in place.

In 2013, XI Jinping was elected as President by the National People’s Congress. The National People’s Congress takes the role of the United States’ Electoral College. China has one primary political party: Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Similar to the United States, in addition to its executive branch, China has a legislative branch as well as a judicial branch. “Its legal system is influenced by former Soviet and continental European civil law systems” (CIA World Factbook, 2015).

The United Kingdom’s constitution provided more protection because in China, the central governing party is the Communist Party and although power is given to the National People’s Congress to make decisions, most of those members belong to the founding Communist Party.

China has always been renowned for being successful in the domains of science and arts, however in previous decades, China has been ravaged by famines, civil discomfort and foreign outsourcing. China was consumed by this injustice until well after the Second World War when Mao Zedong introduced Communism adapted from the U.S.S.R, and created an autocratic socialist system which imposes firm constraints upon the Chinese social, political and economic system. It wasn't until the 1980's China's following leader Deng Xiaoping who focused focused on developing China into a

“The Party: The Secret World Of China’s Communist Rulers,” by Richard McGregor is a book which provides detailed insight into the Communist Party of China, revealing many of the secret underpinnings of how the party is run, and explores the question of how they have continued to stay in power for so long. While other strong socialist powers, such as the Soviet Union and Eastern Germany, fell at the end of the 20th century, the CPC was able to stay in control and ultimately come out of that period even stronger. In McGregor’s own words “the party picked itself up off the ground, reconstituted its armor and reinforced its flank. Somehow, it has outlasted, outsmarted, outperformed, or simply outlawed its critics, flummoxing the pundits who have predicted its demise at numerous junctures.” Instead of letting its own ideologies weaken its power, the CPC has continually adapted and transformed its policies and goals in order to maintain their stronghold over the nation. Through his impressive list of Chinese scholars and political contacts, McGregor is able to lay out the fundamental workings inside the Chinese government and the impressive actions they’ve taken to remain such a powerful organization.

China has been a communist country since the communist revolution took place in 1949, since then China has been ruled by the dictator Mao Tse-Tung. However the Chinese dictator died in September 1976, he was hailed abroad as one of the worlds’ great leaders. Certainly one of the more impressive aspects of the Chinese communist government, has been the willingness of the people to protest against it (3, pg. 4).

I believe the government structure of China is the most contradictory to the U.S. government structure. To begin with, China is a Communist State. The president of China is elected by the National People’s Congress – current president elected with 2,952 votes out of a possible 2,987. The members of the People’s Congress are “elected” from the various municipal, provincial, and regional people’s congresses, with only members of the CCP being eligible for election – thus, ensuring the CCP’s ruling status. In the U.S., in theory, the president is elected by the people in an open and free election (I use “in theory” because of the debate over Electoral College versus popular vote).

With China emerging as a global power in business within the last decade, knowing about doing business in China has become more important than ever. There are both many advantanges and challenges with doing business in China in this modern era, and understanding both sides of this coin is the key to being successful in China. Some aspects to keep in mind include the cultural barrier, the price of the work force in China compared to the United States, and have the “made in China” brand be accepted back in the United States.

The depth of China’s involvement in intellectual property theft is far greater than I would have ever expected. Prior to taking the business law course, I never thought about what intellectual property theft was or the impacts that it has. The report of the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, states that “China is the world’s largest source of Intellectual Property theft” (pg 10 & 11) costing the American economy hundreds of billions of dollars per year, along with millions of jobs.

This site contains information on China's patent and copyright law. It goes on to discuss some ethical issues about China's lack of law enforcement on intellectual property protection.

Despite the high levels of corruption, investors do not seem to be deterred from doing business in China. Some believe that corruption acts as an effective “grease” to speed up the many layers of bureaucratic inefficiencies for starting of businesses in China (Meon, Weill, 2008). Furthermore, the policy of regional competition in China has caused the competitive lowering of bribes in order to attract businessmen with a lower “unavoidable cost” of doing business in the region. (Li, Peng 2001). Another reason would be the high predictability of corrupt practices in China (Campos, Lien, Pradhan, 2001), to the extent where investors factor “bribes and gifts” as a portion of their budget. Hence it does not appear as a deterrent to businesses when they enter the market (Dickson, 2008). Corruption due to “Guanxi” is also explained to enhance efficiency, because “Guanxi” contributes to high levels of public trust that encourages business ventures due to the availability of valuable information that reduces uncertainty (Li, Wu

Political outlook in china is stable due to a one party system and there is almost no opposition to the ruling party and its constant reform on its political systems. By reforming on the political system, it has greatly improved the nation’s development such