I was greatly distressed to hear that another self-burnt incident against coercive house dismantlement by the local government had happened in Huludao City, not only because one more life was harmed, but also because justice, the soul of our society, was severely damaged, which therefore inevitably indicates that more self-burnt tragedies will happen in the future. I also saw the news that Premier Wen Jiabao had talked with petitioners in State Bureau for Letters and Calls, and said that the state will protect the interest of households whose houses were dismantled by the governments. For this reason, Regulations on the Expropriation of Houses on State-owned Land and Compensation therefore was passed by the State Council, and more regulations on expropriation of collective land will be issued. This seems to give us a mite of comfort.

However, I still feel unsatisfied. The phenomenon of coercive dismantlement has lasted for years, or rather, more than a decade, and becomes increasingly intense in recent years. It is believed that dozens of lives have been lost in the large number of vicious coercive dismantlement incidents exposed after the Tang Fuzhen self-burnt incident in addition to those unexposed ones. The State Council abolished the custody and repatriation system promptly after the case of Sun Zhigang. During the SARS epidemic period, the central government immediately adjusted both the leadership team of Beijing city and that of the Ministry of Health and took the information transparency policy, thus overcoming the SARS crisis in a very short time. Premier Wen Jiabao arrived at the earthquake scene in less than two hours after the Wenchuan earthquake happened. In contrast, in dealing with the threat to people’s lives by coercive dismantlement, isn't the government's reaction too slow? Aren't these measures too inefficient?

In fact, the establishment and amendment of regulations on land expropriation by itself is merely a short-term palliative measure rather than a permanent cure. The root cause of coercive dismantlement phenomenon lies in deviations in our current legal system of land, which stipulates that rural collective land will be expropriated as state-owned land when the land will be constructed as an urban area and that land expropriation compensation is limited to as six to ten times as the average agricultural output value per year. These regulations deprive the rural collectives' status of equal negotiation with land demanders as land owners and weigh down the farmers' bid space, resulting in expansion of local governmental power and creating excuses for them to snatch farmers' land. This system will continue to "kill people" systematically unless it is changed. Therefore, the most fundamental solution is to revise the fundamental system on land, abolish regulations which make rural collective land ownership not to be enforced, impose restrictions on power of governmental agencies, and allow land to be effectively allocated under the condition that land property rights are soundly protected and voluntary transactions are guaranteed.

Surely, laws' amending is a process. The government's attempt to amend regulations on land expropriation seems to imply that we will be unable to change current situation before new regulations are promulgated. This is extremely misleading. This seems to say that there are clauses in current laws allowing local governments to drive people to death by coercive dismantlement, and as if that China's current laws allow local governments to abuse public violence to do whatever they like. We have to say that this is a blasphemy against the rule of law. In any society, the legal system subjects to the supreme law, that is, the natural law of respecting and protecting life. Even though serious problems still exist in our current land law system, we can still solve these problems through legal explanations by the Supreme People's Court. That is to say, according to the Constitution, we can emphasizes the specific rights of rural collective land ownership, protection of land property, the fair exchange principle of market economy, and that the government is allowed to expropriate land only on the purpose of public welfare, etc. These all will impose restrictions on local governments' power on land.

An even more direct and effective means is executive order. China is a unitary state. Despite there is a form to elect local government leaders, who are actually appointed by the central government, and the lower level government officials are actually appointed by higher level governments. Before the People's Congress is entrusted with the real power to remove chief executives, the most effective means to stop coercive dismantlement is to directly punish those local government leaders, who drove people to death by coercive dismantlement,  by dismissal and prosecute them for robbery. During the SARS epidemic period, the central government forced the minister of the Ministry of Health and the mayor of Beijing to resign, and the anti-SARS situation was immediately changed at that time. Present situation is actually even severer than the SARS epidemic period. It's time to take some drastic measures.

Today, we see that so many tragedies had happened and the central government feels like an onlooker as if these tragedies happened in other countries. Actually, every self-burnt driven by threat of force not only is the misdeed of local governments, but also evidently reduces the political accumulation of the central government and even the ruling party. A regime, if it does not put people's life in priority, will lose its basic moral foundation for ruling the country. Therefore, coercive dismantlement and the consequent tragedies are subversion of the political legitimacy. In this sense, the priority order for both the central government and local ones should always be life first, achievements second. In fact, protecting life is also achievements. If life is harmed, then the achievement is negative. In rough comparison, a life lost because of coercive dismantlement at least will offset the whole growth of the local GDP, or one percent of the total GDP growth of the country. If the central government can use such standard to set strict demands on local governments and restrain itself, coercive dismantlement will immediately disappear. [Page]

In reality, there is an even higher order than the central government's order. That is, the natural law, or rather the absolute order of God. This order requests us, especially the government officials, to view man's life as the supreme value and any harm to life for any reason should be considered as crime. Therefore, we don't need to wait for the so-called new regulations on land expropriation to come out at all, and our officials could act according to this supreme absolute order right away. I appeal that, all civil servants of local governments who receive orders of coercive dismantlement from higher authorities, should act according to this supreme absolute order, delay, refuse, or even resist the order from higher authorities, respect life, protect life, and save life!

In Hsiu Chi House on January 26, 2011