But those constitutional rights are not enforced, so they may as well not exist.
There has been rule-of-law campaigners in China who push to give the Chinese people more of the rights enshrined in their constitution, but those campaigners tend to be jailed very quickly.
In a sense, but in a very different sense than the Western liberal democratic tradition views each of those freedoms. Take, for instance religion; Article 36 of the Constitution states:
---[art 36]
Citizens of the People’s Republic of China shall enjoy freedom of religious belief.
No state organ, social organization or individual shall coerce citizens to believe in or not to believe in any religion, nor shall they discriminate against citizens who believe in or do not believe in any religion.
The state shall protect normal religious activities. No one shall use religion to engage in activities that disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the state’s education system.
Religious groups and religious affairs shall not be subject to control by foreign forces.
---[end]
Speech, assembly, and protest/demonstration are trickier because the problem isn't evident from a single article in isolation. Article 35, on its face, seems to protect them:
---[art 35]
Citizens of the People’s Republic of China shall enjoy freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, procession and demonstration.
---[end]
But then there's the catch (and this also applies to religion in top of the issues in Art. 36 itself): Articles 51-54
---[start]
Article 51
When exercising their freedoms and rights, citizens of the People’s Republic of China shall not undermine the interests of the state, society or collectives, or infringe upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens.
Article 52
Citizens of the People’s Republic of China shall have the obligation to safeguard national unity and the solidarity of all the country’s ethnic groups.
Article 53
Citizens of the People’s Republic of China must abide by the Constitution and the law, keep state secrets, protect public property, observe discipline in the workplace, observe public order, and respect social morality.
Article 54
Citizens of the People’s Republic of China shall have the obligation to safeguard the security, honor and interests of the motherland; they must not behave in any way that endangers the motherland’s security, honor or interests.
---[end]
But for HN readers who don't know any better ...
> No state organ, social organization or individual shall coerce citizens to believe in or not to believe in any religion
The CCP inserts their own layer of bishops, imams etc. at the top of each religion. That means the CCP maintains control of the religious narrative, so that members don't have a religiously-derived moral center.
Thus the final arbiter of right and wrong is the CCP. You can see where this leads.
The Soviet Union tried asking for compromise from the Vatican, but the Pope consisently told them no. (There's a famous article about John Paul II doing that. It was a very short conversation, being a one word answer, "No.") Unfortunately, the Vatican compromised on this going back to 1950 with the CCP.
Regarding lawyers, the CCP has warned HK lawyers to not represent anybody against the state. They have also created parallel social media profiles and sent impostors to client meetings, then revealed the meeting notes to discredit the real lawyers. So clients aren't sure if a lawyer is real or not anymore.
https://www.ucanews.com/news/vatican-cardinal-accused-of-man...
Admittedly the responsibilities to "observe discipline in the workplace", "respect social morality" and "safeguarding the honor of the motherland" wouldn't normally be part of a constitution in most places, but some of those kinds of ideas are part of the US 'Oath of Allegiance'.
All that said, rights enshrined in China's constitution are not enforced, but arguably some of the responsibilities are enforced.
Call me when they figure out step 1, then we’ll talk.
China has a critical characteristic of a third world country, which is the unspoken “true” law. On a spectrum, the west is certainly on there but more so as you get closer to power structures like Congress and corporations. But the trumpian shithole countries have ‘free elections’ like Russia, and now hilariously I just found out from you China has freedom of speech laws.
I’m not sure why it sounds like I’m taking this out on you (because I don’t mean to).
Why the hell is Stanford associated with this farce?
The Soviet Union had freedom of speech in its constitution also.
The point is that those rights exist only on paper, and so will the rights defined in this new personal information protection law.
“There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech.”