The World Justice Project produces the Rule of Law Index every year. The index for 2025 was released last month. It found China among the “biggest rule of law improvers”, with a 0.8 percent increase in its total score from 2024. However, China was ranked at 92 among 143 jurisdictions surveyed, below Vietnam, India, and Ukraine. One should ask: Why are these countries ranked above China? Do they enjoy better public governance in practice?

Good public governance practice essentially means three things: absence of power abuse, the rule of law and public order, and effective government. If China performs better on these aspects, it should have a higher ranking in the WJP index. Prevention of abuse of power, in my mind, must be the top concern about public governance. Public power should be reserved for furthering the public interest. Any government official, particularly the principal leaders in a government who wield a huge amount of power, must be prevented from abuse of power, particularly using public powers to further private ends. High ranking in law and order is important because the law is there to protect the interest of all citizens and their safety. Justice and fairness, of course, are important indicators as to whether the rule of law is practiced. The WJP thus correctly includes “regulatory enforcement”, which is a good indicator of “effective government”, as one of eight indicators that comprise its Rule of Law Index.

Importantly, China clearly ranks well above world average on all these counts. The WJP has yet to release its full report for 2025. So I have to use last year’s data for a deeper analysis. As WJP reports, China has done better than in 2024. So, indicators from 2024 should not overstate China’s 2025 performance. In 2024, China ranked 95 among 142 jurisdictions in the overall ranking.

“Absence of corruption” is the best indicator of an absence of abuse of power. In 2024, China ranked 54th among 142 jurisdictions. Vietnam ranked 86th.

For law-and-order performance, WJP designates three indicators: “order and security”, “civil justice”, and “criminal justice”. All of this is fair.

For “order and security”, China ranked 40th. Vietnam ranked 50th.

For “civil justice” and “criminal justice”, China ranked 70th and 72nd respectively. In comparison, Vietnam ranked 96th and 63rd.

For “regulatory enforcement”, China ranked 69th, beating Vietnam’s 92nd by far.

We can see, therefore, that apart from “criminal justice”, in which Vietnam outperformed China by nine places, on all other counts, China performed far better than Vietnam.

Superficially, there is nothing wrong with “constraints on government powers”, “open government”, and “fundamental rights”. But ideology-driven interpretation of these otherwise reasonable criteria will yield totally unreasonable results

A quick look at India’s data shows that India performed far worse than China on all these indicators. Here is the list: “absence of corruption” (97th), “order and security” (98th), “civil justice” (107th), “criminal justice” (89th). We will skip Ukraine for brevity. The pattern is no different. Against all governance practice indicators, China has done much better all-around, notwithstanding having been ranked lower in the overall ranking.

What then accounts for China’s lower overall ranking?

The answer is self-evident. Against practice-based criteria, China has done well, certainly above the world average. China ranked low overall primarily because of its low ranking against ideology-based criteria. Ideology-based criteria include: “constraints on government powers”, “open government”, and “fundamental rights”.

Superficially, there is nothing wrong with “constraints on government powers”, “open government”, and “fundamental rights”. But ideology-driven interpretation of these otherwise reasonable criteria will yield totally unreasonable results.

Reasonable interpretation of “constraints on government powers” would not have taken “constraints” out of the context of containing power abuses. If abuses of power are already constrained, what other constraints on government powers are needed? WJP believes that government powers should be effectively limited by the legislature; that government powers should be limited by the judiciary; that government powers are effectively limited by independent auditing and review; government officials are sanctioned for misconduct; government powers are subject to nongovernment checks; and that “transition of power is subject to the law”.

In China, the National People’s Congress is the lawmaking body, responsible for passing all civil, criminal, and contract laws, as well as primary and implementation regulations. However, it is perceived to not be independent of the Communist Party of China. But the CPC under the Constitution is subject to the constraint of the “Three Represents” to serve the public interest and has no partisan interests to defend. With a totally different government structure, transition of power in China is taking place peacefully according to Chinese laws. The leadership is changed without party rotation. This is unthinkable in the West. But based on the practice-based criteria, public governance in China is working even better than many countries that practice party rotation.

An article published in the Journal of Human Rights in August 2024 points out that China takes a different path from that of the West. This has led to bewilderment among observers, who cannot fathom the status of human rights in China because “The CPC has maintained the unity between Party leadership and the respect for and protection of human rights, promoting progress in human rights through the pursuit of ‘high-quality development’, and ensuring various fundamental rights of the people through the rule of law.”

Results indicate that government from the people, for the people, and of the people is working well in China.

The author is an honorary research fellow at the Pan Sutong Shanghai-Hong Kong Economic Policy Research Institute, Lingnan University, and an adjunct professor at the Academy for Applied Policy Studies and Education Futures, the Education University of Hong Kong.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.