Comparative Method in China: Volume 2

Author: Jiang Ping, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-11-01
Features: Comparative law in China has a historic responsibility and mission: the modernization of Chinese law. Whether to raise the issue of the modernization of Chinese law and whether Chinese law needs modernization is a highly controversial view. Some worry that if the modernization of Chinese law is proposed, it might trigger sensitive debates about the modernization of the political system. I believe that the modernization of Chinese law is both a historical fact and a historical law, and there is nothing to fear. The modernization of Chinese law has gone through three stages in the more than 110 years of modern Chinese history:
The first stage began with the reforms and innovations during the late Qing Dynasty. The reforms started with the Self-Strengthening Movement, and the reforms themselves were precisely aimed at modernizing Chinese law. During this period, the modernization of law involved learning from, borrowing, and even adopting a series of legal systems from Western countries, guiding the old, long-standing feudal legal system toward modernization.
The second stage was the period of reform and opening-up after the founding of the People's Republic of China for thirty years. In this well-known stage, a series of laws were formulated and continuously revised, gradually transforming the traditional, closed, planned economic legal system into a modern market economy legal system over three decades.
The third stage will begin around the time China joined the World Trade Organization. Joining the WTO means that China will need to revise a series of laws, transforming the legal system that has been in place for over two decades to regulate the domestic market economy order and rules into a modern international market order and rules.
Comparative Law in China is not just about academic research and dissemination, nor can it be confined to the high-level knowledge within the ivory tower. It should have a more grand and inescapable historical mission: to contribute its share to the modernization of Chinese law!