Law and Politics in Modern China: Under the Law, the Law, and Abo ...

Chapter 1

Imperial Law, Revolution,
and Reform

The fundamental difference between Chinese legal tradition and that of the West lies not so much in if law works, but rather in what kind of law regulates social and political institutions and how that law is written, announced, implied, and administered. To understand Chinese law, one has to acquire a considerable knowledge of the history of the language in which law evolved and legal thinking was cultivated. One has to consider a much wider spectrum of the Chinese legal tradition when comparing it to Western laws, which are primarily made of positive rules separated from moral and political judgement.¹

Long and uninterrupted literary tradition sets the Chinese language apart from other languages. Chinese is not the only language that has a five-thousand-year history, but it is the longest continuing literary tradition in the world. Writing was used in Greece and Crete during the Bronze Age, but the written material that survives from these cultures consists mainly of inventories and other administrative records, rather