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Quest for Constitutional Justification: Privatization with Chinese characteristics

The fifteenth congress of the Chinese Communist Party inaugurated a sweeping reform that has been transforming the ownership of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Though a term 'common ownership' was the official name given to the scheme, it was regarded as a coded reference to privatization. If this is true, given the size of China's economy, this is probably the most ambitious privatization plan ever in the world. Bearing in mind that for nearly half a century the Chinese economy has remained based on the dominance of the state sector, it is understandable that the scheme had a shocking psychological effect at home and abroad the moment it was officially declared. For some people, China's privatization foretold a crusade. As a matter of fact, it ignited political debate at home and also sparked speculation abroad about the political tendency in China. From the academic perspective, it is of interest to figure out whether the scheme is privatization; if yes, how a decision could be made to privatize in the context of one of the few remaining socialist countries. One aim of this paper is to give an explanation to the paradox from the political-legal point of view. The paper argues that privatization is a natural result of the strategy for modernizing enterprises. However, the paper observes that the political and particularly the legal climates are not prepared for the privatization scheme, which poses a substantial restriction on the scheme. Then, the paper argues that the worth of the privatization scheme that has been proceeding in China does not lie in the novelty of its common ownership suggestion, but in its representing a near consensus on the Chinese leadership to push forward the experiment already undertaken over the preceding years. Finally the paper ends by predicting briefly what can be expected of the scheme and how meaningful it will be.