With his formal avenues for appeal already exhausted, Chen’s only recourse now is China’s Byzantine petitioning system, a holdover from imperial days that exists in parallel with the legal system. As Li notes, it is rare for a petition to even be accepted by the relevant office, much less be acted on. And in many cases, orders issued in Beijing or a provincial capital as a result of a successful petition are ignored by lower authorities. (Tiangao, huangdi yuan, "Heaven is high and the Emperor far away," the Chinese say. Beijing has enormous trouble enforcing its will at the local level, where the local bosses pretty much do what they want.) Still, Li said that so far Chen’s spirits are holding up well. "He is very strong," said Teng.
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