China
Author | Richard Ward |
Pages | 286-297 |
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Official country name: People's Republic of China (PRC)
Capital: Beijing
Geographic description: This country occupies a strategic location in Asia, with the Pacific Ocean to the east and an overland route to Central Asia and eastern Europe to the west, it is bordered by fifteen countries: North Korea, Russia, Japan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, India, Laos, Bhutan, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, and Vietnam; the total land area is 3,705,406 square miles
Population: 1,306,313,812 (est. 2005)
China
China's recorded history covers a span of almost 4,000 years, and its legal and social control system has evolved through tumultuous political and social upheavals. Although the Han Chinese represent the largest single ethnic group in the country, with few exceptions there are not strong territorial boundaries, and the Han people are represented in most the thirty-four provinces, including the Hong Kong Special Administration Region and the Macao Special Administration Region.
Chinese colonialization (colonization) has a history dating back thousands of years, and various periods in history reveal both tragedy and triumph, conquerors and conquered. The development of a legal system began in China as a means of strengthening the power of rulers. The first recorded evidence of this is a set of laws inscribed in bronze written in the second half of the sixth century B.C.E.
Law during the early periods stressed the importance of uniform rules, rights, and privileges with a system of rewards and punishments that were designed to eliminate some forms of injustice and favoritism and to better define criminal activity. The law in early China did not develop out of custom or of common practice in settling disputes, nor is it the result of a convention translating a common will. Early law was based on the power of the state, the emperor, as being supreme. The Chinese emperor's rule has a long history of more than 2,000 years, with great social and political turmoil leading to ever-changing dynasties. The Chinese traditional legal rule of the emperor may be best described as an intricate web of relations based ultimately on the family and policed by a labyrinth of mutually self-controlled units.
Han-fei-tzu (died 233 B.C.E.), the founder of the Chinese Legalist School, had set up many important
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concepts on "Rule by Law" that were contrary to the "Rule by Moral and Education" of Confucius. He established a philosophical framework for legalism that stressed that knowledge of the law should be a primary goal for society; this is in contrast to the preceding emperors in China's history who had merged Legalist concepts with Confucianism so as to gain the greatest control over people's behaviors and minds. According to Han, law must exclude uncertain and variable judgments, and it must be objective. The judge's task is to define the crime correctly, and in doing so, this identifies sanctions, as they are written.
Under the Han emperors, modifications of legal principles changed slowly, with punishment based on the nature and duration of mourning by the victim's family in cases of murder or manslaughter. Dignitaries sentenced to death were permitted to commit suicide.
Between the third and seventh centuries a system of penal laws emerged; the most elaborate description available today being in the T'ang code of the seventh century. During the Han period convicts and debtors were employed as "slaves" in the workshops. Merchants were not generally looked on with favor, and emphasis was placed on working for the state.
The Han period brought a higher degree of civilization to China, as classical studies and intellectual curiosity were encouraged. Village meetings and discussion groups were seen as a means of supporting social integration.
From the beginning of the third century to the end of the sixth (the Wei, the Jin, the South dynasty, the North dynasty, the Sui and T'ang Empires) many changes took place in China. Penal legislation was strengthened and the New Code (Hsin-lv) in 229 represented an important step in Chinese law.
The next major period in Chinese jurisprudence was the period from 1800 to 1900. During this time national independence was lost during financial and economic failures, compounded by corruption, and saw a major social explosion that began in 1870 and lasted twenty years. Western nations, using economic and military power, joined by Japan, virtually eliminated the state and social structure as the economy collapsed. The first half of the nineteenth century saw the continuing decline of the empire and the introduction of Western powers with expansionist aims. The success of the East India Company, due almost solely to the import of opium into China in exchange for tea and other goods, also helped fuel expansion of the British Empire in India.
The "opium war" of 1839 represented the Chinese government's last ditch stand to control a menace that had gripped the country and was creating a trade imbalance that threatened to destroy the economy. Chinese efforts to end England's monopoly on opium virtually fell apart when British naval and military contingents launched a series of attacks against those attempting to stop the opium trade. Opium became the main cargo of the shipping industry, which was licensed by the East India Company and the American clippers.
In 1843 China granted for the first time extraterritorial rights to England in which British citizens were beyond Chinese legal jurisdiction. This gave the British a significant political advantage in Hong Kong, a small island that was ceded to Britain in 1842. The Hong Kong Special Autonomous Region (SAR) included the vast area of Kowloon and the New Territories around the mainland peninsula. In 1897 the British paid 21 million silver dollars to lease the Hong Kong SAR for ninety-nine years, setting the stage for further British incursions into the region. Slowly, China gave up its independence to foreign powers. It had lost its edge in agriculture, production, and modernization, falling behind many smaller countries. In 1997 Hong Kong was returned to Chinese control.
After Sun Yat-sen's death in 1925, and under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, who had wrested power from Wang Ching-wei, the political chairman, the 100,000-man Kuomintang Army, with the cooperation of the armies of the warlords, moved to capture the north of China.
However, in March 1927 Chiang broke with the Nationalist government, feeling secure that he had the backing of the powerful Shanghai business community, which also represented foreign interests. On April 18, 1927, Chiang proclaimed a new government with himself at the head. He rapidly took Beijing, and made strong progress toward unification of the country. Eventually, Chiang's Kuomintang (KMT) Party emulated Western views, and his own personal philosophy was directed toward a strong central authority designed to eliminate dissent. He formed a political police, known as the "blue shirts," and a so-called Census Bureau of the KMT central committee and a Census Bureau of Chaing's central military commission whose mission it was to detect liberals and revolutionaries. He was beholden to the big banks, particularly in Shanghai and the influence of a relatively few rich families, such as the Songs, one of whom was his brother-in-law.
Hanging over the government was the threat of Japan, which had occupied the northern provinces of China since 1931. This threat, and continuing battles with the warlords, occupied much of the government's time and money. In July 1937 Japan invaded China, marking yet another dark period in the country's history. Meanwhile, dissatisfaction with the KMT regime grew as
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peasant groups formed unions that were directed by Communist dissidents.
Until 1949 a Chinese middle class began to emerge largely as a result of the Western trade influence during this period. Armies were supported by foreign powers, such as the U.S. support of Chiang. Widespread corruption and the abuse of government power eventually resulted in the development of peasant militias and an internal civil war led by Mao Zedong. The conflict ended in a decisive battle in the winter of 1948–1949, in which more than a half-million Nationalist soldiers succumbed to the Communist troops. With the remnants of his army, Chiang fled to Taiwan. On October 1, 1949, the PRC was born.
Many of the government leaders and more wealthy citizens fled to Taiwan under the leadership of the KMT government, then known as Formosa, where the government was established with U.S. support.
The situation facing China's leadership on the founding of the People's Republic was less than hopeful. Under the leadership of Mao, the army moved quickly to control the land and within two years had unified the country, which included the liberation of Tibet in May 1951. In 1959 the Tibet Rebellion and the departure of the Dalai Lama nullified the agreement. Only Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao, and a few islands off the coast remained under what the Chinese perceived as foreign control. In 1997 Hong Kong reverted to Chinese control as the 100-year lease with the British government ended.
The early years of the PRC were characterized by propaganda and indoctrination over economic growth and management, under the strong personal influence of Mao, resulting in a "unified" country under...
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