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The justification for this action is that “visual space rights” in a city belong to its government. This assertion is being questioned by law experts, but at the same time the practice is spreading to other Chinese cities, reported the Legal Daily in Beijing on June 2.
In hearing about such “visual space rights” for the first time, I felt this is very interesting. In checking Baidu – a Chinese search engine like Google – and the omniscient Wikibar, the biggest Chinese online encyclopedia, I could not find this term.
What I did find were a few news links connecting the term with outdoor advertising, which showed the relationship between the two. One can infer that so-called “visual space rights” were born for the sake of skimming profits from outdoor advertising – resulting in a concept that is specious and completely untenable in law.
Worse is the fact that this groundless “right” has been sending city management departments to indiscriminately tear down many outdoor advertisements that were legally applied for and paid for. City officials justify this by presenting documents saying they are improving the appearance of the city. However, they have neither notified advertising companies beforehand nor granted them the opportunity to appeal, thus greatly damaging the interests of the advertising companies.
Even more embarrassing is that when ad companies have challenged this nonexistent, imaginary “right” through legal channels, requesting the city to present legal grounds for its action, their demands have been viewed as opposition to law enforcement.
Why do city officials have so much enthusiasm and impetus for this? It is because of the huge potential benefits. According to Chinese media, outdoor advertising in Guangzhou city generates 1,500 million yuan (US$220 million) in revenues, and even a smaller city like Chengdu can generate about 200 million yuan (US$30 million). In other words, taking a percentage of this, not even counting relevant taxes, means huge money.
It is not clear what impact this profit-grab by city governments will have on advertising prices. What is clear is that consumers will ultimately pay for it.
By right, the major functions of a city government are to provide public products and services and maintain a fair and just market. Its income should come from legitimate tax revenues – not from efforts to subvert the legal process and concoct various pretexts to appropriate the profits of others. Otherwise, it will end up competing with citizens for benefits – which is diametrically opposed to the concept of a public service-oriented government.
Professor Jiang Ping, a renowned jurist from the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, has said that governments need to explain the legal grounds for imposing extra charges on advertisements that are not situated on government property.
If government officials feel that exorbitant profits are being made in this industry and wish to rectify the situation by taxing such profits, this should be done only after sufficient investigation and discussion, including public hearings, other law experts have pointed out.
It can be concluded that “visual space rights” were designed to fill city coffers rather than improve city management. And city governments – which should be the first to respect and uphold the law – are tenaciously exercising their power over the objections of law experts to do this.
Worst of all, there are unlimited potential applications of this concept. Today people are being charged for “visual space rights”; tomorrow they might be charged for “sunlight rights” or “air breathing rights.”
Local governments cannot shirk their responsibility to respect the law as China makes the difficult journey away from “rule by men” to “rule by law.” If local officials count on their luck and completely ignore the law, not only will the law suffer damage, but so will the image and credibility of the government.
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(Zheng Ying is a freelance critic on current affairs and a former journalist based in the city of Chengdu in Sichuan province of China. This article is edited and translated from the Chinese by UPI Asia.com; the Chinese original can be found at http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_58daf6670100dhnq.html ©Copyright Zheng Ying.)
