Chinese law

Imperial era

Late-Imperial and Republican China

In the late Qing dynasty there was a concerted effort to establish legal codes based on European models. Because of the German victory in the Franco-Prussian War and because Japan was used as the model for political and legal reform, the law codes which were adopted were modelled closely after that of Germany. These legal codes were then adopted by the new Republican government, but because of the general disorder due to warlordism, they were not effectly put into practice.

Law in the People's Republic of China

The Law of China contemplates both a formal system of social control by the a legal system and a complementary system of informal social control. This is derived both from traditional principles of Confucianism and from socialist theory.

After the Communist victory in 1949, the People's Republic of China quickly abolished the Republic legal codes and attempted to create a system of socialist law copied from the Soviet Union. With the rift with the Soviet Union and the Cultural Revolution, all legal work was suspected of being counter-revolutionary, and the legal system completely collapsed.

With the start of the Deng Xiaoping reforms, the need for reconstructing a legal system was seen. This reconstruction was done in piece-meal fashion. Typically, temporary or local regulations would be established and after a few years of experimentation, conflicting regulations and laws would be standardized.

As a result of a pending trade war with the United States of America over violations of intellectual property rights of American corporations in the early 1990s, the People's Republic of China's trademark law has been modified and now offers significant protections to foreign trademark owners.

Law in the Republic of China on Taiwan

Law in Taiwan is based on the legal system which carried to Taiwan by the Kuomintang. It is strongly based on the law of Germany. In the area of constitutional law, Taiwan still uses the 1947 Constitution which was promulagated for both Mainland China and Taiwan although numerous changes have been made to take into account the fact that the Republic of China only controls Taiwan and two counties of Fujian.

External link

• Article on formal and informal social control (http://216.239.35.100/search?q=cache:I-AcZS90vfEC:www.hku.hk/crime/2ccgc/papers/allanjiao.doc+formal+government+law+%22social+control%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8)