The Chinese Communist Party has politicised the judicial and law-enforcement apparatus despite Beijing’s avowed commitment to global norms. This paper shows how, in the wake of the 4 June 1989 crackdown, the CCP leadership enhanced its control over the courts and procuratorates so as to boost its capacity to punish dissidents, separatists, and other destabilising elements. Despite President Hu Jintao’s slogan of “running the country according to law,” the prospect for rule of law and judicial independence remains illusory.

The leitmotif of the much-anticipated Seventeenth CCP Congress in October 2007 was how to give substance to the goal of "constructing a harmonious society." However, the Hu-Wen leadership's refusal to undertake real political reforms, especially sharing power with "disadvantaged" socio-economic groupings, has exacerbated differences across disparate classes and sectors. This article argues that "harmony" can hardly be attained while the Party "which is in cahoots with monopolistic business groups" refuses to yield the tight grip it has on power and its ironclad control over the nation's resources.

Five days after the Tiananmen Square massacre, Deng Xiaoping indicated that this "counter-revolutionary turmoil" was bound to happen because of trends in the da qihou (literally, the larger climate; figuratively, major domestic and global developments. To understand the intriguing changes that have taken place in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) ten years after 1 July 1997, it is instructive to assess changes in not only Hong Kong itself but also Beijing-Hong Kong relations. China's precipitous rise to within striking distance of attaining "quasisuperpower status also has to be taken into account.