Abstract
This chapter provides an empirical-based assessment of the prevailing public sentiment toward social problems, social harmony, and social control in China at the current time. It gauges the level of willingness and readiness of the Chinese public toward supporting rule of law. It also compares and contrasts China’s rule of law performance with that of the other countries.
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Notes
- 1.
Collective contention incidents are defined by the Chinese government as public protests or disturbances that involve more than five persons.
- 2.
China’s new leader Xi Jinping also uses the term “Chinese dream” in a recent public speech (spring 2013). His coinage of the term is meant to be nationalistic, used in a similar vein as the rhetoric uttered by the CCP pioneers at the early twentieth century. Chinese dream is the collective dream for the Chinese State and the Chinese civilization, unlike the largely individualistic “American dreams” made known to every new immigrant to the United States.
- 3.
Respondents who are 16 years old or older are eligible. Unfortunately, no data was available from three provinces/autonomous regions: Guangxi, Ningxia, and Hainan.
- 4.
The effectiveness of venting through public media varies and is largely under government control. The Economist (2013) issued a recent special report on China and the internet. It states that “Chinese internet resembles a fenced-off playground with paternalistic guards,” and that “the internet requires the party center to be more efficient at being authoritarian.”
- 5.
Guanxi is a term that is similar to the English translations of “relationship” and “connection” but it is much more, given China’s rule of man culture heritage. A good read of the dynamics in the personalized Chinese networks of influence can be found in Gold et al's. (2002) work.
- 6.
Increasing number of Chinese universities have signed MOU agreements with their counterparts from foreign (mostly Western and English-speaking) countries for faculty and student exchanges and joint research. Each year a healthy number of Chinese law school faculty, criminal justice practitioners, and doctor of law candidates are sponsored by the Chinese government (e.g., Chinese Scholarship Council) to spend a semester or a year as a visiting scholar.
- 7.
For example, a comparative moot court pilot project funded by the US State Department was carried out jointly in 2001–2002. It involved the Massachusetts Judges Conference, the Supreme People’s Court of China, Tsinghua University School of Law, Xiamen University School of Law, Sichuan Judges Conference, and the High Court of Jiangsu Province. The moot court used a civil case under the US rules to introduce key participants to aspects of American judicial procedures and to demonstrate the rule of evidence and the principles of due process (CPDD 2013).
- 8.
American Bar Association (ABA) developed a Prosecutorial Reform Index (PRI) under its Rule of Law Initiative. The PRI Index draws criteria from the ABA standards for criminal justice (prosecution function), the UN Guidelines on the role of prosecutors, the Council of Europe recommendations on the role of public prosecution in the criminal justice system, and the International Association of Prosecutors Standards of Professional Responsibilities and Statement of the Essential Duties and Rights of Prosecutors (Greer 2007).
- 9.
Empirical legal research funded by the Ford Foundation has generated great interest in the Chinese legal community. There is strong indication that outcomes of these studies are playing an increasingly important role in guiding policy making and revising legal statutes.
- 10.
Detailed methodology used for the survey is described on the organization’s website at http://worldjusticeproject.org/methodology.
- 11.
Country scores for “informal justice” are not reported by the organization.
- 12.
The acronym of “BRIC” countries are first used by Jim O’Neill, a global economist at Goldman Sachs. The four BRIC countries combine for a quarter of the world landmass and forty percent of the world population. They are predicted to become among the most dominating economies by the year 2050.
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He, N. (2014). Rule of Law in China: Social Milieu and Global Survey. In: Chinese Criminal Trials. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8205-5_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8205-5_4
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