Video Library

Legal Reform in China: The Domestic Debate

Thomas Kellogg, Open Society Institute & Soros Foundation

Date: 09/09/2009
Duration: 1:02
Description:
Many assumed that China would, as it grows more prosperous, embrace the
rule of law, even as it maintains a go-slow approach on political
reform. But in March 2008, the Communist Party renewed its support for
“socialist legality,” highlighting the role of the Party in the judicial
process and explicitly rejecting Western-style legal reforms. Some
Chinese critics of the new policy have called for an embrace of global
values and renewed efforts to construct independent legal institutions
free from Party influence. Others advocate wide-ranging, wholesale
structural reforms based on the Western constitutional model.  Still
others eschew specific policy proposals and instead offer a nationalist
critique of Western governments’ interactions with China.

This ongoing internal debate is vitally important: its outcome
will help determine China’s reform path. Those seeking to better
understand where China is going need to look closely not just at the
ever-growing thicket of new laws and regulations issued by the State,
but also at what both the government and its well-meaning critics are
saying about the future of political and legal reform in China.

Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)
Sponsor: Berkeley Center for Law and Business