19 Facts About Chinese law

Chinese law is one of the oldest legal traditions in the world.

The core of modern Chinese law is based on Germanic-style civil law, socialist law, and traditional Chinese approaches.

Once written Chinese law came into existence, the meaning of xing was extended to include not only punishments but any state prohibitions whose violation would result in punishments.

Under Legalism, Chinese law is to be publicly promulgated standards of conduct backed by state coercion.

Unlike many other major civilizations where written Chinese law was held in honor and often attributed to divine origin, Chinese law in early China was viewed in purely secular terms, and its initial appearance was greeted with hostility by Confucian thinkers as indicative of a serious moral decline, a violation of human morality, and even a disturbance of the total cosmic order.

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Imperial period was characterized mainly by the concept of Chinese law as serving the state, a means of exerting control over the citizenry.

Ch'u concludes that the gradual process of Confucianisation of Chinese law was the most significant development in the legal system of China prior to 20th century modernization.

The metamorphosis of li into Chinese law depended on its widespread and unvaried acceptance by society.

Introduction and translation of Western legal texts into Chinese law is believed to have been started under the auspices of Lin Zexu in 1839.

Legal translation was very important from 1896 to 1936 during which period the Chinese absorbed and codified their version of Western laws.

Chinese law reformers sought to create a special arbitration body, independent of the local legal system, called the China International Economic Trade and Arbitration Commission .

The Chinese law government has promoted a reform it often calls "legalisation" .

Sometimes excessive generality and omissions in Chinese law, coupled with the wide discretionary powers conferred on local authorities to implement laws, undermines the predictability and certainty of law.

Furthermore, as Chinese law is intended to be educative, the language of the law is that of the ordinary language comprehensible to the average citizen, although in reality many laws are drafted in broad and indeterminate language.

In 2005, China started implementing legal reform, which revived the Maoist-era ideals adopted during the 1950s due to the position that the Chinese law is cold and unresponsive to the needs of its citizens.

Fazhi can be translated into English as "rule of law", but questions have often been asked whether Chinese leaders meant "rule by law", which means the instrumental use of laws by rulers to facilitate social control and to impose punishment as understood in the Legalist tradition.

In 1999, the NPC adopted an amendment to the Chinese law Constitution, incorporating both concepts in Article 5.

Thick theory rule of Chinese law espouses all the elements of thin theory in addition imposes a political, social, and economic concept into the rule of Chinese law.

The rule of Chinese law is regarded by some as presupposing political or economic structures of liberal democracy, human rights and other ideal socio-legal order.