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

sense) throughout its history. As words failed, swords had to take over. Lacking a legal protocol to amend the system, military intervention is a constant element of Chinese social change. Since there is no negotiable channel for social change (the voice of the under laws has never been heard), modification must be initiated through an armed action of under laws against those above law.² Under laws occasionally resort to an outlaw revolution when the government becomes extremely corrupted or insensitive to public grieving so that social reorientation can proceed.

For thousands of years, almost every new dynasty in China has emerged, more or less, through this sort of revolution of outlaw peasants. The revolutions did not change the law itself, as it was quickly re-announced after the coronation of the new emperor, but they changed the people who administrated the law. The system remained intact while the people occupying the positions above law and under law simply changed places. As the revolutionary outlaws crowned themselves as the new masters (above law), the cycle was completed and once again prepared to repeat itself.

These unconstitutional characteristics of social change are rooted in Chinese culture and language rather than merely the personalities of China's leaders. Mao's Chinese Revolution, also referred to as the Communist Revolution, in the first half of the twentieth century, which overthrew the Nationalist government and established the People's Republic of China in 1949, was a revolution of outlaws. Mao was the only Chinese leader who had the vision to acknowledge that his once revolutionary but now ruling syndicate was, much to his dismay, becoming a privileged class (above law). Although he chose different political theory, rewrote the law, and risked everything to launch another revolution, his vision and the actions that he undertook failed to pull China away from its intrinsic system of stratification and the inherent corruption that it bred. He had followed the same road as scores of emperors before him. He was a peasant hero (of the under-law group) who had elevated himself to the status of above law. He became the mouth of law, and his words became doctrine. Even with his exceptional personal charisma, Mao failed in his attempt to dismantle the level of society