Suing for clean air and studying for the bar exam: Rachel Stern on China's legal system

Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

Currentaffairs, Business, News, China Politics, Shenzhen, Chinese, Chongqing, China News, Politics, China, Culture, Sichuan, Hangzhou, Beijing, International Relations, China Economy, Chengdu, Film, Shanghai, Guangzhou

4.7 • 710 Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2016

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

China’s legal system is much derided and poorly understood, but its development has, in many ways, been one of the defining features of the reform and opening-up era. Rachel Stern, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Berkeley, has researched the contradictions, successes and failures of China’s changing approach to governance and legal oversight of society. She has also written a book, Environmental Litigation in China: A Study in Political Ambivalence, which examines the intersection of Chinese authoritarianism, pollution and the nation's laws. In this podcast, Rachel talks with Kaiser and Jeremy about her recent research, the Chinese bar exam and its politicization, the ways in which environmental litigation works (or doesn't), and the anxious uncertainty behind much of the self-censorship in media. You can find background reading for this podcast here, which includes a curated reading list on China's legal system. You can also learn more about Rachel in her supplementary Q&A with Jeremy Goldkorn in which they discuss comparisons between the U.S. and Chinese legal systems, the phrase "rule of law" and the Chinese citizens who are filing lawsuits. Recommendations: Jeremy: Chinese politics from the provinces blog. Rachel: The Chinese Mayor, a documentary film by Zhou Hao. Kaiser: Moonglow, a novel by Michael Chabon. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Sinica podcast, a week of the discussion of current affairs in China, produced in partnership with SUPChina.
0:15.1	SubChina is a great way to stay on top of China news in a few minutes a day with a daily email newsletter, a mobile phone app, and at the website,
0:22.4	supChina.com. It's a feast of business, political, and cultural news about a nation that is reshaping
0:27.9	the world. I'm Kaiser Guo, Kunheu, from the campus of the University of California, Berkeley,
0:33.6	my alma mater, go bears. And I am joined by Mr. Jeremy Goldcorn. How are you Jeremy? I'm doing very well
0:39.4	Kaiser very well indeed. Always a pleasure to be in the Bay Area. Yes it is it is and you've been to
0:43.7	Berkeley here before haven't you? I have but the only real time I spent here was in 2001 I don't think
0:49.5	it's really changed in a lot of ways well it hasn't changed since the 1960s mainly well. I have a quick
0:54.5	Berkeley story about how things never changed here. We just walked by that bookstore. I pointed
0:58.4	it in that little alley between Channing and Durant called Revolution Books. It's moved
1:03.5	locations. It was across the alley before when I was here, but it's still there, which is kind of
1:06.9	astonishing. In 1989, my friend Drew, he and I just come back from Beijing
1:13.1	after the events of June of 89 after Tiananmen and all that. And we went up to campus
1:18.9	and went to Revolution Books. And we were there kind of just to see what their take was
1:23.8	on what had just happened. And there were all these posters and newspapers, their own
1:28.6	newspapers. I can't remember what they were called, you know, ridiculous comedy names. But their take,
1:32.8	apparently, was that the student protests were in fact about bringing back Maoism, bringing back
1:38.5	the cultural revolution, that it was about overthrowing the counter-revolutionary clique of
1:43.7	Deng Xiaoping.
1:44.6	So it was pretty funny.
1:46.5	We were laughing about their whole rightist coup business.
1:50.0	There was also a lot of pro-Sendera luminosa shining paths of the Peruvian Maoists.
	...

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