China S Legal Reforms And Their Political Limits

Presents new insights into recent changes in China's legal framework in areas crucial to the modernisation process. Topics include law reform to accommodate foreign interests and convert China to a market economy, the judicial system and its treatment of human rights issues, the introduction of non-tariff barriers for foreign companies, and the current privatisation process.

The Politics of Law and Stability in China examines the nexus between social stability and the law in contemporary China. It explores the impact of Chinese Communist Partyês (CCP) rationales for social stability on legal reforms, criminal justice opera

China has enjoyed considerable economic growth in recent years in spite of an immature, albeit rapidly developing, legal system, a system whose nature, evolution and path of development have been poorly understood by scholars. Drawing on his legal and business experience in China as well as his academic background in the field, Peerenboom provides a detailed analysis of China's legal reforms. He argues that China is in transition from rule by law to a version of rule of law, though most likely not a liberal democratic version as found in economically advanced countries in the West. Maintaining that law plays a key role in China's economic growth, Peerenboom assesses reform proposals and makes his own recommendations. In addition to students and scholars of Chinese law, political science, sociology and economics, this will interest business professionals, policy advisors, and governmental and non-governmental agencies as well as comparative legal scholars and philosophers.

In The Limits of the Rule of Law in China, fourteen authors from different academic disciplines reflect on questions that have troubled Chinese and Western scholars of jurisprudence since classical times. Using data from the early 19th century through the contemporary period, they analyze how tension between formal laws and discretionary judgment is discussed and manifested in the Chinese context. The contributions cover a wide range of topics, from interpreting the rationale for and legacy of Qing practices of collective punishment, confession at trial, and bureaucratic supervision to assessing the political and cultural forces that continue to limit the authority of formal legal institutions in the People’s Republic of China.

This volume explores various aspects of the law in transition in post-Mao China. Stanley Lubman's introduction places each of the substantive chapters in the larger context of Chinese legal studies. Edward Epstein analyses the transplanting of European and Anglo-American legal ideologies into China, and the dilemmas this poses for the rule of law and legitimation in the reform period. Murray Scot Tanner analyses reforms in the legislative process, focusing particularly on the separation of the Communist Party from day-to-day legislative affairs and more pluralistic tendencies in the legislative process. William C. Jones, by addressing the opinion of the Surpreme People's Court regarding implementation of the general principles of civil law, raises compelling questions about legal interpretation in China in the context of social reform. James Feinerman analyses developments in Chinese contract law, raising the question as to whether in China it can form a basis for predictability and certainty in commercial transactions that are integral to the economic reforms. Judy Polumbaum studies developing efforts to enact a press law, reflecting the uses to which law has been put in pursuit of the political issue of press reform. Finally, Pitman Potter analyses the emerging concept of judicial review in the context of the Administrative Litigation Law of the PRC, an important aspect of political reform in China. By addressing these issues, the authors aim to reveal the various aspects of the developing autonomy that is embodied in China's legal reforms.

China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) has had a tremendous impact on the development and reform of China's legal system. This book focuses on the developments of China's legal system as well as its reform in the context of globalization. It covers various topics, including constitutional changes, law-based administration, and more.

In the 1990s China embarked on a series of political reforms intended to increase, however modestly, political participation to reduce the abuse of power by local officials. Although there was initial progress, these reforms have largely stalled and, in many cases, gone backward. If there were sufficient incentives to inaugurate reform, why wasn't there enough momentum to continue and deepen them? This book approaches this question by looking at a number of promising reforms, understanding the incentives of officials at different levels, and the way the Chinese Communist Party operates at the local level. The short answer is that the sort of reforms necessary to make local officials more responsible to the citizens they govern cut too deeply into the organizational structure of the party.

This book examines the law reforms of contemporary China in light of the Party-state’s ideological transformation and the political economy that shapes these reforms. This involves analysing three interrelated domains: law reform, power and wealth. The contributors to this volume employ a variety of perspectives and analytical techniques in their discussion of key themes including: commercial law reform and its governance of wealth and regulation of economic activity; the influence and authority of the Party-state over China’s economic activity; and the influence of wealth and the wealthy in economic governance and legal reform. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach, this book presents analytical perspectives of new work, or new lines of thinking about the new wealth, power and law reforms of China. As such, critical boundaries are explored between legal and financial reforms and what these reforms signify about deeper ideological, economic, social and cultural transformations in China. The book concludes by asking whether there is a ‘China model’ of development which will produce a unique variety of capitalism and indigenous variant of rule of law, and examining the ‘winners and losers’ in the transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. Law, Wealth and Power in China will be of interest to students and academics of comparative law, Asian law, Chinese economics and politics, Chinese Studies, as well as professionals in investment banking, finance and government.