Two Chinese Commentators on the Slow Progress Towards a Law on Religions (Comments AND Notes) (Report‪)‬

2010: The Legal Context In 1956, Liu Shaoqi, then President of China, said in his report to the National Congress of the Communist Party of China that the establishment of a complete legal system had become an absolute necessity. (1) But priorities quickly changed for the Party, and establishing a legal system was soon openly criticised by Premier Zhou Enlai. The work of establishing a legal system was not begun until after the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. But it was not until more recent times that Jiang Zemin promised that China would have a complete legal system by 2010. (2) In March this year, the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, Wu Bangguo, promised that the work would be complete in 2010. (3) However, even the basic framework is unlikely to be in place by the end of 2010, much less a fully complete legal system.