Chinese lawyer files information disclosure request for financial details of 4 trillion RMB stimulus package
Chinese lawyer Yan Yiming (photo credit: Reuters)
Yan Yiming, a renowned Shanghai lawyer, has recently made headlines by coming to Beijing and filing two government information disclosure requests. His two applications ask the Ministry of Finance and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) to disclose the financial details of the 4 trillion RMB government stimulus package. The request to the NDRC calls for the disclosure of all investment sources and recipients in the 4 trillion RMB stimulus package, while the request to the Ministry of Finance asks for disclosure of the central government’s financial balance for last year and its fiscal plan for 2009, two weeks in advance of the NPC meeting this year.
Facing a global economic turndown, China’s market rescue policy has attracted wide attention since its announcement. However, the question of how to supervise the investment funds has become a hot topic of debate. He Maochun, Director of the Research Center of Economic and Diplomatic Affairs at Tsinghua University, reasons that the implementation details of the 4 trillion RMB stimulus package should be discussed and voted on by NPC representatives. Additional supervision, he argued, should come in the form of following, supervision, and auditing by the NPCs at all levels, especially for budget approvals. On the SunTV program LunHeng, the special commentator Chen Ping pointed out that supervision was difficult for both China and the US but argued that complete transparency would offer the best chances of success.
Yan Yiming is directly using the provisions of the open government information disclosure measures by asking for public details of the policy. According to He, the great amount of concern shown by taxpayers towards the stimulus implementation reflects the strong base of Chinese economic democracy. Moreover, this is also an important experiment to test the effectiveness of the open governmental information laws.
Before his recent two information disclosure requests, Yan Yiming was well known for fighting for the legal rights of mid- and small-level investors in the stock market. Since 1998, he has taken on some of the most famous business securities law cases in China. For his actions, the US magazine BusinessWeek nominated him as a “Star of Asia.”
Yan Yiming has also taken advantage of the information disclosure law since it came into effect on May 1, 208. According to Xinhua, Yan previously submitted open information requests to the Henan Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB), asking them to disclose the basis, items, criteria, and procedure for emissions fee collection along with a full list of polluting enterprises whose emissions had exceeded national or local standards. In a request submitted to the Anhui EPB, Yan asked for a similar list of severe polluters who had exceeded local or national standards. Yan remained persistent when the Anhui EPB initially refused to provide the information; he petitioned again and again, eventually escalating the case to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Supervision. A China Fortune report notes that Yan’s interests lie in fighting for rights of all kinds, and he intends to extend his legal battles to issues of environmental pollution, food safety, and other issues in the future.
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