For more than a decade, Chinese law experts have been regularly invited to give lectures to the top leaders of the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the Huairen Hall in Zhongnanhai. These legal lectures have made a profound impact on the CPC top leaders and their concepts regarding government.

According to Xiao Yang, president of the Supreme People's Court and former minister with the Ministry of Justice, in the second half of 1994 the leading Party group of the ministry submitted to the CPC Central Committee a proposal to conduct legal lectures along with suggested topics for these lectures. The proposal actually echoed the Central Committee's urge to promote renovation within the current legal system. The Central Committee immediately approved these lectures and their topics. Thoroughly prepared, the first legal lecture to the top party leaders was held on December 9, 1994. Hosted by Jiang Zeming, former general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, the lecture was delivered by Cao Jianming, executive vice-president of the Supreme People's Court and former professor with the East China University of Political Science and Law. Cao illustrated General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and laws relating to international trade in his lecture.

In the next eight years, as many as twelve such lectures were delivered to the politburo. All of them covered major subjects at home and abroad, for instance, the "one country, two systems" and the Basic Law of Hong Kong. The lecturers were experts from prestigious institutes, such as Renmin University of China, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China University of Political Science and Law and China Foreign Affairs University.

In November of 2002, Hu Jintao was elected as the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee during the 16th National Congress of CPC. This Hu-headed Central Committee attaches great importance to extensively expanding the knowledge of all politburo members. All the members must regularly attend a medley of lectures on topics ranging from economics, politics and law to new technologies, management and history. Such lectures have been actually institutionalized by the Central Committee. Significantly, the lectures about law have always been given the highest attention. In December of 2002, Hu hosted the first lecture attended by the entire politburo, which dealt with China's Constitution. To date, politburo members have heard eight legal lectures.

The initiatives of the Party Central Committee have encouraged all of Chinese society to learn more about legal systems, thus enhancing an ordinary Chinese people's sense of the law. Moreover, inspired by these legal lectures, the politburo has now devised their own concept of "rule of law". The concept and the goal of "a socialist country of law" have been inked in the Amendments to the Constitution. This shows that the top CPC leadership is determined to totally abandon the "rule by man" heritage, which will undoubtedly make a profound influence on China's democracy and construction of an improved legal system.

(China.org.cn by Pang Li, November 11, 2007)