ABSTRACT
As China ascends to its place as a leading nation on the world stage, one of the many pressing issues facing its leaders involves the role of the legal system. Will China become more open to some forms of Western legal practice, especially as it examines the experiences of neighbors like Japan and Taiwan, where the development of the legal system has played a role in furthering democratization and the evolvement of civil society? Or will it follow the other Asian model, that of a “benevolent” authoritarian state, with the law often serving as a tool for the state to silence dissenters?1 As the Chinese Communist Party strives to enhance its legitimacy by creating a viable legal system, it continues to grapple with the thorny issue of whether its leadership should be subject to the rule of law, or whether the law will continue to function as a tool for sustaining power and privilege. As Joseph Kahn noted in a feature article entitled “Deep Flaws, and Little Justice, in China’s Court System” (published in The New York Times on September 21, 2005),2 “Justice in China is swift but not sure”. Many protests in China today center on the issue of justice (Cai 2006; Diamant, Lubman, and O’Brien 2005; O’Brien and Li 2006; Perry and Goldman 2007), with one blogger responding to the January 2008 fatal beating by parapolice officials of a man trying to videotape a protest by lamenting “Where is justice? Where is the law? Aren’t there any rules in China?”3
