ABSTRACT
One difference to which Western managers sometimes find it difficult to adapt is that between the notion of the law they are used to and the law as it operates in China. This has deep roots, with the tradition of law in China very different from that in the West. The written law of premodern China was overwhelmingly penal in character. This meant that:
matters of a civil nature were either ignored by it entirely (for example, contracts), or were given only limited treatment within its penal format (for example, property rights, inheritance, marriage). The law was only secondarily interested in defending the rights – especially the economic rights – of one individual or group against another individual or group and not at all in defending such rights against the state . . . If a dispute involved two individuals, individual A did not bring a suit directly against individual B. Rather he lodged his complaint with the authorities who decided whether or not to prosecute individual B.
