{"title":"How China’s Supreme People’s Court Supports the Development of Foreign-Related Rule of Law","authors":"Susan Finder","doi":"10.1163/25427466-08010001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25427466-08010001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article provides a detailed analysis of the evolution of the role of the Supreme People’s Court (spc) in the Xi Jinping era, examining functions little explored in scholarship. It explains how and why the spc supports national strategies, focusing on the development of “foreign-related rule of law” through multiple “active” functions. It explores that work in the context of strengthened Communist Party leadership of the courts and other legal institutions. The article examines the spc’s functions of “policy-making,” “law-making,” case hearing, and coordinating and cooperating with central Party and state institutions and how they are used to support the development of “foreign-related rule of law.” The discussion of those functions also illustrates the impact of strengthened Communist Party leadership. The Politburo’s 2023 collective study session on foreign-related rule of law signals that the spc’s foreign-related judicial expertise as exercised through its multiple functions is crucially important to the Party leadership. The article illustrates one aspect of the unique role of the spc as China’s highest court in its dynamic political-legal system and the way in which it supports evolving national strategies and the implementation of fundamental policies.","PeriodicalId":135002,"journal":{"name":"China Law and Society Review","volume":"163 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140449623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Changing Role of the Police in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1966","authors":"Juan Wang","doi":"10.1163/25427466-07020005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25427466-07020005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In mid-1966, the police in China reportedly assisted mass killings of “class enemies” or showed indifference to such events when they were enacted by others. Why did the police, as a coercive apparatus of the communist regime, not execute these class enemies, as they had done between 1949 and 1957 in the movements to suppress and eliminate counterrevolutionaries? And why did the police, as a state organ for maintaining public order, not take action to prevent or halt these killings? Drawing primarily on original archival documents, this article studies the evolving role of the police and its shifting priorities between 1949 and 1966. It shows that, after an initial expansion followed by a partial contraction, official police responsibilities transitioned from enforcing selective punishment and maintaining public order to assisting or overlooking revolutionary violence.","PeriodicalId":135002,"journal":{"name":"China Law and Society Review","volume":" 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138617321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"China’s Transition to Collective Labor Relations: Top-Down and Bottom-Up Mechanisms","authors":"Chang Kai","doi":"10.1163/25427466-07020003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25427466-07020003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article analyzes the development, characteristics, and tendency of China’s labor relations and the labor movement in recent years. It points out that China has begun the transition from individual labor relations to collective labor relations with the strike wave in the summer of 2010 as the main turning point. In the process of transformation, there are two kinds of forces and two ways to accomplish the labor movement. One is the top-down labor union movement led by the authorities within the system; the other is the bottom-up labor movement formed spontaneously by workers outside the system. The article particularly analyzes the emergence of, and mutual relationship between these two types of transition, as well as their influence and significance on China’s labor relations.","PeriodicalId":135002,"journal":{"name":"China Law and Society Review","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136099622","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial Introduction to the Special Issue on Labor Law in China","authors":"Mary E. Gallagher","doi":"10.1163/25427466-07020001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25427466-07020001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":135002,"journal":{"name":"China Law and Society Review","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136099624","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Labor Legislation in China: Cyclical Competition between the State and the Market","authors":"Dong Baohua","doi":"10.1163/25427466-07020002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25427466-07020002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract China’s first labor law was passed in 1995 in order to protect the legitimate rights and interests of laborers. It also was the superstructure created to match the developing labor market and employment reform of the Reform Era by “establishing and safeguarding the labor system suited to the socialist market economy.” In 2007, the prc then passed the second foundational labor law, the Labor Contract Law, which took as its purpose the establishment and development of harmonious and stable labor relations. A major distinction between these two laws is that the 1995 Labor Law emphasized market-oriented flexibility while the 2008 Labor Contract Law, by strengthening the role of labor regulation, emphasizes a state-oriented stability. Since the 2008 lcl , all labor legislation and amendments have those two laws as their origin, creating cycles between reliance on the bottom-up spontaneous power of the market and the top-down regulatory power of the state. So far, there have been 3 cycles of legislation and revision of China’s labor legislation; each five years apart in 2008, 2013, and 2018. This cyclical contest reveals the basic realities of China’s political economy. I use the last twenty years of data on labor disputes to highlight the cyclical nature of China’s labor legislation and the social and political forces that drive these cycles.","PeriodicalId":135002,"journal":{"name":"China Law and Society Review","volume":"474 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136099623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/25427466-07010000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25427466-07010000","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":135002,"journal":{"name":"China Law and Society Review","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135287558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Power and Space Production: A Bourdieusian Approach to Environmental Law and Inspection in China","authors":"L. Ye","doi":"10.1163/25427466-07010004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25427466-07010004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The most important tool or institution that the Chinese state has used since 2002 to address environmental pollution, relying on its power to force compliance by local polluters and cadres, is environmental inspection. This article proposes a Bourdieusian approach for analyzing environmental inspection by considering the symbolic power of the state and the local effects of inspections at different levels of government, which have seldom been explored in the literature. We use this approach to examine four propositions with a sample comprising ninety-nine inspections in city H. First, inspectors use both the objective and symbolic power of the state in inspections. Second, inspectors at lower levels in the bureaucratic hierarchy have less objective and symbolic power in confronting local cadres and polluters. Third, local environmental protection changes physical space (e.g., landscape), social space (e.g., relations between cadres and polluters), and mental space (e.g., environmental perceptions). Fourth, inspectors with more power produce larger spaces for environmental protection. Through using this approach, we offer insights into how the Chinese state uses inspection to mobilize local societies to address social or governance crises.","PeriodicalId":135002,"journal":{"name":"China Law and Society Review","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133982403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Basket Case: Reform and China’s Social Credit Law","authors":"Adam Knight","doi":"10.1163/25427466-06020003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25427466-06020003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The social credit system ( scs ) has become a cornerstone of China’s drive toward informatization in pursuit of its governance goals. Its definition and scope, two decades in the making, have evolved dramatically over time, however. What began as a financial tool for the stimulation of market-based activity has been applied in a broader regulatory context as well as in the propagation of a state-arbitered moral-legal agenda. Layered on top of these sometimes conflicting ambitions has been a persistent tension in central-local implementation, further complicating rollout of the system. Domestic criticism of the scs in policy and academic circles has led to a clamor for reform, culminating in the publication of a number of clarificatory documents, including a draft version of a Social Credit Law in November 2022. This article provides a genealogy of this new law, exploring the origins and evolution of the scs and its governing legal logic.","PeriodicalId":135002,"journal":{"name":"China Law and Society Review","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134963841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Smart Governance in China’s Political-Legal System","authors":"Straton Papagianneas","doi":"10.1163/25427466-06020002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25427466-06020002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The belief in quantitative indicators based on standardized data as an effective tool has become more entrenched than ever before, in both public and corporate governance, because of a drive to achieve more efficiency and accountability. The power of automated computation systems and the ubiquitous availability of big data have magnified the potential and capacities for quantification. The People’s Republic of China ( prc ) has enthusiastically embraced these advanced technologies. The rapid digitization and automation of social governance in China, called “smart governance,” entail new approaches to social and political control, driven by innovations in algorithmic systems, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence. This article seeks to reveal the ideological foundations of the prc ’s push for the digitization and automation of social governance. Drawing on international scholarship on Chinese Marxism and Leninism, it argues that the positivist organizational and ideological principles of Marxism-Leninism help explain why technology and automation are embraced so enthusiastically by the Chinese party-state: they provide a way to achieve the dream of rational Marxist governance. Through an empirical analysis of 120 articles from 2014 to 2021, this article illustrates that these ideas are, or may be, a vital part of shaping academic discourse around smart governance in China today. An analysis of Chinese academic discourse is an essential part of understanding the ideological foundations of Chinese Communist Party ( ccp ) governance and statecraft and how these commitments shape the embrace and deployment of smart technologies. The way in which scholars discuss the transformative power of smart technologies demonstrates a similar ideological understanding of social governance.","PeriodicalId":135002,"journal":{"name":"China Law and Society Review","volume":"64 2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135295494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cybersecurity Law and Regulation in China: Securing the Smart State","authors":"Rogier Creemers","doi":"10.1163/25427466-06020001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25427466-06020001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Cybersecurity has become a key regulatory area in China’s rapidly digitizing society, economy, and state. The leadership deems it critical in providing adequate security guarantees for the realization of the ambitious “informatization” policy, symbolized by the passing of the Cybersecurity Law in 2016. Cybersecurity has also become integrated with overall national security, at a time when Chinese policy has become increasingly securitized. What, then, does this mean in practice? How do authorities conceive of cybersecurity and attempt to retrofit regulatory frameworks into an already well-established digital environment. This paper reviews the various components of the cybersecurity regime established by the Cybersecurity Law. It discusses how external circumstances have facilitated or obstructed the advance of regulation and implementation and demonstrates how cybersecurity is embedded in the broader processes of reform led by the Chinese Communist Party.","PeriodicalId":135002,"journal":{"name":"China Law and Society Review","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135295493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}