Heaven Has Eyes

The conclusion points out the multidimensional interactions of many factors in the functions of Chinese law and justice in the past and present and delineates four overlapping historical contexts for an understanding of such functions. These are the indigenous traditions in the long history of China; Western influences from the nineteenth century and especially on the transformations in the twentieth century; interactions between lawmakers and state agents, and between state actions and societal responses; and the reality of justice being done in relative and imperfect ways under the best circumstances, due to human fallibility.

“Naked Officials” and “Heavenly Net”

Chapter 10 continues the survey of criminal justice in 1997–2018. It notes important changes in the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedural Law, including the abolition of class struggle as the guide to criminal justice and “counterrevolutionary” as a criminal category, and the introduction of “harming national security” as a criminal category in the 1997 Criminal Code. Other changes include a series of amendments in recent years to the 1997 Criminal Code and the 1996 Criminal Procedural Law, providing more safeguards of the rights of the accused and reducing the number of capital offenses, and the abolition of the “reeducation through labor” (laojiao) system in 2013. Another area of legal responses to societal changes in the period is prosecution of corrupt party-state officials at high levels. A law-enforcement program called Heavenly Net was launched in early 2015 to capture corrupt officials and white-collar criminals who fled to other countries.

The Legal System and the Rule of Law

Chapter 9 covers criminal justice in the first two decades after Mao’s death (1977–1996), when Deng Xiaoping was the top leader. With a brief summary of political developments, it outlines the post-Mao legal-judicial reforms as part of the reform and opening policies launched by Deng, including the enactment of the first Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedural Law of the PRC. While the Criminal Code retained Maoist language and influence, such as placing certain offenses in a category of “counterrevolutionary crimes,” the Criminal Procedural Law offered the beginning steps leading to procedural justice. The reforms included construction of a court system, professionalization of judges, and restoration of the legal profession. The chapter also looks at legal responses to reemerging crimes such as prostitution, human trafficking, narcotics trafficking, and pornography.

The Rule of Law, Judicial Independence, and Due Process

Chapter 5 examines the continuation of the legal-judicial reform and its achievements and limitations under the Beijing government (1912–1927) and the Guomindang (GMD, or Nationalist Party) government (1927–1949). The Beijing government tried to implement an ambitious reform plan but failed to materialize it completely due to a lack of resources, among other problems. The GMD continued the reform but also instituted practices particular to its ideology of ruling the country through the party, including the invention of political offenses and their punishments through special laws and special courts. The durability of positive reform outcomes in those years is shown in the way the Chinese judiciary functioned in the Japanese-occupied territories during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945).

“Contradictions between the People and the Enemy”

Chapter 7 presents the Maoist theory of class struggle and its manifestation in dealing with common crimes and political offenses by legal (and extralegal) and judicial (and extrajudicial) means. Such practices originated in the pre-1949 revolutionary experiences and culminated in the disastrous Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). The chapter explains the reasons why the CCP did not find it necessary to have a criminal code and a criminal procedural law, and how the mechanisms of social engineering that the CCP designed and developed helped social control and crime prevention. It traces the rationales and practices of “reform through labor” and “reeducation through labor” during the Mao era and after. It describes the political campaigns of the 1950s and 1960s that reached the point of lawlessness in the Cultural Revolution.

Introduction

The introduction posits the thesis of the book, that the notion of “Heaven has eyes” meaning “justice should and will be done” is part of an enduring Chinese belief that manifests in how law and justice have functioned in Chinese history. It explains that in the Chinese mind justice (meaning what is just and the judicial system and practices) is conceived to be an alignment of Heavenly reason (ultimate morality), state law, and human relations and feelings; “Heavenly reason” or ultimate morality was redefined in different time periods. The introduction outlines four broad time periods of Chinese legal history: the imperial era, the Republican era, the Mao era, and the post-Mao era.

Bandits, Collaborators, and Wives and Concubines

Chapter 6 provides concrete cases in criminal and civil justice to flesh out the effects and defects of the reforms during the Republic (1912–1949). For criminal justice, it looks into how robbers and bandits were punished under a special law reminiscent of the imperial-era precedents and how Chinese collaborators working for the Japanese occupiers during the war (1937–1945) were prosecuted and punished after the war (1946–1949). For civil justice, the chapter focuses on marriage and divorce and the issue of concubines, showing the movement toward gender and marital equality and the agency of women in pushing for such changes and in using the law and courts to pursue their own interests.

The Best of the Chinese and of the Western

Chapter 4 introduces the conflicts arising in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries between the Qing dynasty and Western powers over Chinese law and justice that contributed to the Opium Wars and the resultant unequal treaties. It explains how, compelled by Western pressure and modeled after Western systems, the Qing dynasty, not foreseeing its own demise in ten years, began a far-reaching legal-judicial reform to modernize law codes and judicial institutions and practices. Guided by the principles of the rule of law, judicial independence, and due process, the reformers set out ambitious reform goals that would result in some concrete changes in laws and institutions, and more importantly, the goals would outlive the Qing dynasty to be pursued and implemented in the Republican era (1912–1949).

Five Punishments and Beyond

Chapter 1 discusses the intellectual foundations of Chinese law and justice, such as the notions of Heaven, the Mandate of Heaven, Heaven-human interactions, and yin and yang as two primal forces constituting the underlying dynamics of the cosmos and human society. It traces the evolution of penal codes from the Qin dynasty to the Qing dynasty, showing how morality, governance, social order, justice, and wrongdoing were defined and how conceptions of criminal offenses and their punishments evolved. It makes clear that the imperial law and justice were designed to uphold the imperial system and the patriarchal family system as a coherent political-social-moral universe, which was underpinned by the notion of balance between yin and yang and was corresponding to “Heavenly reason.”

“Look toward Money”

Chapter 11 shifts to an exploration of post-Mao civil justice. Enormous changes have taken place due to economic reforms, and reestablishing the sanctity of private property has led to a dramatic increase in civil disputes. The chapter also examines new versions of the Marriage Law (1980 and 2001) and samples civil disputes that reflect both positive and negative changes in social-economic landscapes and in social norms and moral values resulting from the reform and opening policies since the late 1970s. Since a civil code is still in the making as of this writing, civil adjudications have been guided by a number of civil statutes issued in the recent decades. The civil lawsuits sampled here include those regarding divorce and property division, family support, torts, online defamation, and housing demolishing disputes. Last but not the least, the problem of civil enforcement is addressed.