Literature Review on FOI in China

Theoretical analysis of Chinese FOI is still far from perfect as most Chinese academics have primarily focused on the introduction of FOI and primarily by legislative analysis. To date, Chinese scholars have published hundreds of papers, and five monographs. Mingjie Zhang has focused her efforts on the introduction of the legal concept of FOI, albeit there are some analyses regarding the right to know. Her main aim is finding some evidences to support the right to know as a lawful right in the current legal system. Jie Liu also undertook the similar task, and focused on the introduction of Japan’s FOI legislation. Heng Liu’s monograph introduced the contents of FOI legislation but did not mention a word for the exemptions part. Hanhua Zhou deserves a special mention. He has contributed significantly to Chinese FOI research by translating other jurisdictions’ FOI legislation and drafting a model of FOI legislation for China. However, he still concentrated on the introduction area and has not provided systematic and deep comparative analyses on FOI practices in China. Feijing Liu and Conghu Wang recently started to explain FOI practices that have occurred in China from other perspectives including information society, governance and e-government and transparency. Their work is a good beginning and there is a need for more comparative and inter-disciplinary research and analysis."> " title="permanent link">#