Criminal Justice in China
Criminal Justice in China

Author: Klaus Mu_hlhahn

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-04-30

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 9780674054332

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In a groundbreaking work, Klaus Muhlhahn offers a comprehensive examination of the criminal justice system in modern China, an institution deeply rooted in politics, society, and culture. In late imperial China, flogging, tattooing, torture, and servitude were routine punishments. Sentences, including executions, were generally carried out in public. After 1905, in a drive to build a strong state and curtail pressure from the West, Chinese officials initiated major legal reforms. Physical punishments were replaced by fines and imprisonment. Capital punishment, though removed from the public sphere, remained in force for the worst crimes. Trials no longer relied on confessions obtained through torture but were instead held in open court and based on evidence. Prison reform became the centerpiece of an ambitious social-improvement program. After 1949, the Chinese communists developed their own definitions of criminality and new forms of punishment. People's tribunals were convened before large crowds, which often participated in the proceedings. At the center of the socialist system was reform through labor, and thousands of camps administered prison sentences. Eventually, the communist leadership used the camps to detain anyone who offended against the new society, and the crime of counterrevolution was born. Muhlhahn reveals the broad contours of criminal justice from late imperial China to the Deng reform era and details the underlying values, successes and failures, and ultimate human costs of the system. Based on unprecedented research in Chinese archives and incorporating prisoner testimonies, witness reports, and interviews, this book is essential reading for understanding modern China.

The History of Chinese Legal Civilization
The History of Chinese Legal Civilization

Author: Jinfan Zhang

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2020-07-25

Total Pages: 903

ISBN-13: 9789811010309

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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

The Limits of the Rule of Law in China
The Limits of the Rule of Law in China

Author: Karen G. Turner

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2015-05-01

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0295803894

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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.

China’s War on Smuggling
China’s War on Smuggling

Author: Philip Thai

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2018-06-12

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 023154636X

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Smuggling along the Chinese coast has been a thorn in the side of many regimes. From opium and weapons concealed aboard foreign steamships in the Qing dynasty to nylon stockings and wristwatches trafficked in the People’s Republic, contests between state and smuggler have exerted a surprising but crucial influence on the political economy of modern China. Seeking to consolidate domestic authority and confront foreign challenges, states introduced tighter regulations, higher taxes, and harsher enforcement. These interventions sparked widespread defiance, triggering further coercive measures. Smuggling simultaneously threatened the state’s power while inviting repression that strengthened its authority. Philip Thai chronicles the vicissitudes of smuggling in modern China—its practice, suppression, and significance—to demonstrate the intimate link between illicit coastal trade and the amplification of state power. China’s War on Smuggling shows that the fight against smuggling was not a simple law enforcement problem but rather an impetus to centralize authority and expand economic controls. The smuggling epidemic gave Chinese states pretext to define legal and illegal behavior, and the resulting constraints on consumption and movement remade everyday life for individuals, merchants, and communities. Drawing from varied sources such as legal cases, customs records, and popular press reports and including diverse perspectives from political leaders, frontline enforcers, organized traffickers, and petty runners, Thai uncovers how different regimes policed maritime trade and the unintended consequences their campaigns unleashed. China’s War on Smuggling traces how defiance and repression redefined state power, offering new insights into modern Chinese social, legal, and economic history.

Chinese Law: Context and Transformation
Chinese Law: Context and Transformation

Author: Jianfu Chen

Publisher: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers

Published: 2015-12-22

Total Pages: 792

ISBN-13: 9047423437

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Eight years of changes in China have passed since the publication of the previous highly successful edition of this book. These changes have not just been about economic development. Among the many transformations there has been another quiet, peaceful, and largely successful (but far from perfect) ‘revolution’ in the area of law, whose deficiencies have been more often mercilessly examined and documented than have its historical achievements and significance. This legal ‘revolution’ is the subject matter of the present book. Like the previous edition, it examines the historical and politico-economic context in which Chinese law has developed and transformed, focusing on the underlying factors and justifications for changes. It attempts to sketch the main trends in legal modernisation in China, offering an outline of the main features of contemporary Chinese law and a clearer understanding of its nature from a developmental perspective. It offers comprehensive coverage of topics such as: ‘legal culture’ and modern law reform, constitutional law, legal institutions, law-making, administrative law, criminal law, criminal procedure law, civil law, property, family law, contracts, law on business entities, securities, bankruptcy, intellectual property, law on foreign investment and trade, and implementation of law. Fully revised, updated and considerably expanded, this editon of Chinese Law: Context and Transformation is a valuable and important resource for reasearchers, policy-makers and teachers alike.

China and the International Criminal Court
China and the International Criminal Court

Author: Dan Zhu

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-02-05

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 9811073740

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This book focuses on the evolving relationship between China and the International Criminal Court (ICC). It examines the substantive issues that have restricted China’s engagement with the ICC to date, and provides a comprehensive assessment of whether these Chinese concerns still constitute a significant impediment to China’s accession to the ICC in the years to come. The book places the China-ICC relationship within the wider context of China’s interactions with international judicial bodies, and uses the ICC as an example to reflect China’s engagement with international institutions and global governance in general. It seeks to offer a thought-provoking resource to international law and international relations scholars, legal practitioners, government legal advisers, and policy-makers about the nature, scope, and consequences of the relationship between China and the ICC, as well as its impact on both global governance and order. This book is the first of its kind to explore China’s engagement with the ICC primarily from a legal perspective.

Chinese Law: Context and Transformation
Chinese Law: Context and Transformation

Author: Jianfu Chen

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2015-12-04

Total Pages: 1131

ISBN-13: 9004228896

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China has changed and the continuing changes have not just been about economic development. Among the many transformations there has been another quiet, peaceful, and largely successful (but far from perfect) ‘revolution’ in the area of law, whose deficiencies have been more often mercilessly examined and documented than have its historical achievements and significance. This legal ‘revolution’ is the subject matter of the present book. Like the previous edition in 2008, it examines the historical and politico-economic context in which Chinese law has developed and transformed, focusing on the underlying factors and justifications for the changes. It attempts to sketch the main trends in legal modernisation in China, offering an outline of the principal features of contemporary Chinese law and a clearer understanding of its nature from a developmental perspective. It provides comprehensive coverage of topics: ‘legal culture’ and modern law reform, constitutional law, legal institutions, law-making, administrative law, criminal law, criminal procedure law, civil law, property, family law, contracts, torts, law on business entities, securities, bankruptcy, intellectual property, law on foreign investment and trade, Chinese investment overseas, dispute settlement and implementation of law. Fully revised, updated and considerably expanded, this edition of Chinese Law: Context and Transformation is a valuable and important resource for researchers, policy-makers and teachers alike.

Crime, Punishment, and Policing in China
Crime, Punishment, and Policing in China

Author: Børge Bakken

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2005-03-22

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0742575594

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Crime long has been a silent partner in China's march to modernization, leading the regime to make law and order as central a priority as economic growth and the promise of prosperity. This groundbreaking study offers the first comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of Chinese crime, policing, and punishment. A multidisciplinary group of leading scholars draw on a rich body of empirical data and rare archival research to illuminate seldom-explored theoretical dimensions of legal ideology and reform as well as the linkages between crime and control to broader themes of law, modernization, and development. The authors balance comparative perspectives with an understanding of China's unique historical and cultural experience. This context is critical, the authors argue, as crime and control are at the root of modernity and how it is defined. In many ways the PRC is reliving the experiences of other industrializing countries, yet at the same time the practices of China's police and prison system also are painted with thick layers of historical memory. Order has become increasingly important in legitimizing the Chinese regime, but its practices and ideas of policing are often missing from our picture of Chinese social and political development. This important book's discussion of the paradoxes of policing and the problems of order bridges that gap and demystifies developments in China. All those interested in modern and contemporary Chinese politics, law, and society, as well as in comparative criminology and law, will find this work an invaluable resource. Contributions by: Børge Bakken, Frank Dikötter, Michael Dutton, James D. Seymour, Murray Scot Tanner, and Xu Zhangrun.