The History Of Chinese Legal Civilization

This book, based on the theory of Marxism-Leninism, aims to study the essence, content and features of various legal systems in China in different historical periods, as well as the rules of the development of Chinese legal systems. It effectively combines classic analysis and historical analysis to probe historical facts and elaborate the historical role of the legal system, revealing both the general and the specific rules of the development of China s legal system on the basis of the existing relevant research. The subject matter is of abundant theoretical and practical significance, as it enriches Marxist legal studies, deepens readers’ understanding of China s legal civilization and offers guiding principles for the creation of socialist legal systems with Chinese characteristics. It discusses the trends in thinking on the reconstruction of the legal system; changing laws; western legal culture; the legal system in the period of westernization, constitution and reform; preparation for constitutionalism; modification of the law during the late Qing Dynasty; criminal, civil and commercial legislation; and judicial reforms in the modern era as well as the various ups and downs and cases of malconduct after the founding of the People’s Republic of China

This book, based on the theory of Marxism-Leninism, aims to study the essence, content and features of various legal systems in China in different historical periods, as well as the rules of the development of Chinese legal system. It effectively combines classic and historical analysis to probe the historical facts and elaborate the historical role of the legal system, revealing both the general and the specific rules of the development of the Chinese legal system on the basis of the existing relevant researches. The subject matter is of abundant theoretical and practical significance, as it enriches Marxist legal studies, deepens the readers understanding of Chinese legal civilization and offers guiding principles for the creation of socialist legal systems with Chinese characteristics. The chapters are structured chronologically, ranging from the Xia and Shang Dynasties, the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Spring and Autumn Period, the Han Dynasty, the South and North Dynasties, the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Song Dynasty to the Ming and Qing Dynasties when Chinese legal system took on its final form. The chapters are compiled according to legislation, administrative law, criminal law and judicial system. Besides, the Chinese legal civilization after the Revolution of 1911 led by Sun Yat-sen is also addressed.

The book was first published in 1997, and was awarded the first prize of scientific research by the Ministry of Justice during the ninth Five-Year Plan of China. In 2005, it was adopted the text book for the postgraduates of law majors. In 2009, it was awarded the second prize of the best books on law in China. The book discusses from different aspects the long legal tradition in China, and it not only helps us to have a further understanding of Chinese legal system but also combines theories and practice and illustrate the modern legal transition which probes the history of Chinese legal system. As is known to us all, China is a country with a long legal history, which can be traced back to more than three thousand year ago. So the legal tradition of China has been passed down from generation to generation without any interruptions. This feature is peculiar to Chinese legal history which is beyond all comparison with that of other countries such as ancient Egypt, ancient India, ancient Babylon and ancient Persia. Through the study of Chinese legal history we can have a deeper understanding of the histories, features, origins and the transition of Chinese legal tradition. The Chinese legal tradition originated from China, and it is the embodiment of the wisdom and creativity of Chinese civilization. The great many books, researching materials, legal constitutions, archives, files and records of different dynasties in China have provided us with rare, complete and systematic materials to research. The book has a complete, systematic and detailed research on Chinese legal tradition and its transition and it gives people a correct recognition of the process of the perfection of laws during its development and its position as well as its value in the social progress in order to grasp its regular patterns. It also has showed us the most valuable part and core of Chinese legal Tradition and it is a summary of Chinese legal tradition and its transition from different perspectives, different angles and different levels. From the book, we can see that the ancient Chinese Legal Culture had once shocked the world and exerted great influence on the civilization of the world legal system, especially the legal systems in Asian countries. The book also has discussed the reestablishment of law in the late Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Chinese law’s transition to modernity. In a word, the book has not only combined the legal system and the legal culture together, but also integrated the important historical figures and events ingeniously and it is a valuable and readable book with authenticity.

This study examines the law of intellectual property in China from imperial times to the present. It draws on history, politics, economics, sociology, and the arts, and on interviews with officials, business people, lawyers, and perpetrators and victims of 'piracy'. The author asks why the Chinese, with their early bounty of scientific and artistic creations, are only now devising legal protection for such endeavors and why such protection is more rhetoric than reality on the Chinese mainland. In the process, he sheds light on the complex relation between law and political culture in China. The book goes on to examine recent efforts in the People's Republic of China to develop intellectual property law, and uses this example to highlight the broader problems with China's program of law reform.

"Origins of Chinese Law develops and supports an original, yet controversial, picture of early Chinese law. Casting doubt on the accepted premise that there was a unified system of law and punishment throughout the ancient Chinese empire based on the wuxing, or five punishments, the author suggests a more complicated and diverse picture: that from their earliest origins the Chinese people were subject to different laws and punishments based on their clan or social status." "Using a wealth of literary evidence from the Confucian classics and historical writings, and making use of recent archaeological excavations of oracle bones, bronze inscriptions, and bamboo strips, the author elucidates the central concepts that formed the basis of early Chinese law such as Li, covenant, punishment, and the theories and practice of law of the Qin and Han dynasties."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The History and Theory of Legal Practice in China: Toward a Historical-Social Jurisprudence goes beyond the either/or dichotomy of Chinese vs. Western law, tradition vs. modernity, and the substantive-practical vs. the formal. It does so by proceeding not from abstract legal texts but from the realities of legal practice. Whatever the declared intent of a law, it must in actual application adapt to social realities. It is the two dimensions of representation and practice, and law and society, that together make up the entirety of a legal system. The assembled articles by the editors and a new generation of Chinese scholars illustrate a new “historical-social jurisprudence,” and explore the possible conceptual underpinnings of a modern Chinese legal system that would both accommodate and integrate the unavoidable paradoxes of contemporary China.

This book aims to explore the construction of Chinese law, with an evolution that has been strongly inspired by international law that has functioned as a "pioneer of legal civilization" in China. Chinese law is a fluid sedimentation of traditional elements of Chinese culture and the internalization of external elements. The internal dimension of Chinese legal evolution therefore coincides with a progressive incursion also at the international level, questioning the traditional rules of international relations. The most relevant and comprehensive concept that has been proposed by China in recent years is certainly the idea of building a "community of shared future for mankind." This aspiration demonstrates a global and integral vocation of international law capable of embracing relations of a new type, towards a multi-polar democratization of international relations, which mark the need for the beginning of a new era.

The seventeen contributors to this interdisciplinary volume bring to the study of early China the analytical concerns of archeology, art history, botany, climatology, cultural and physical anthropology, ethnography, epigraphy, linguistics, metallurgy, and political and social history. Readers interested in such topics as the origin of rice or millet agriculture, the origin of writing, the nature of the trie, and the processes of state formation will find much value here. They will find, too, major hypotheses about teh cultural importance of ecogeographical zones in China, Neolithic interaction between the east coast and Central Plains, the remarkable homogeneity of early Chinese crania, and the links between the Hsia, Shang, and Chou dynasties. Relying on recently published archaeological evidence and the insights gained from carbon-14 and thermoluminescent datings, the authors provide original and significant interpretations of the nature of Chinese civilization in its formative stage and the processes by which civilizations form. Since there is little doubt that the complex of culture traits which defines Chinese civilization in the second and fist millennia B.C. developed from a Chinese Neolithic stage, the origin of the Chinese civilization is worth studying not only in its own right but as an instance of the indigenous development of civilizations in general. This volume will appeal to all who are intersted in the genesis of civilization and the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age; it summarizes that state of present knowledge about China and suggests research strategies and hypotheses for the future. Contributors:Noel BarnardK. C. ChangTe-Tzu ChangCheung Kwong-YueWayne H. FoggUrsula Martius FranklinMorton H. FriedW. W. HowellsLouisa G. Fitzgerald HuberKarl JettmarDavid N. KeightleyFang Kuei LiHui-Lin LiWilliam MeachamRichard PearsonE.G. PulleyblankRobert Orr Whyte This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1983.