A Historic Review and Reconsideration of the People's Consciousness of Civil Rights in China

As a necessary condition for the modernization of governing by law, it is of great importance to upgrade people's consciousness of civil rights. For a long time in the theoretical world, the sense of civil rights for the Chinese people is set on the “level of obligation” and the examination of this is carried out time and again. This paper, with no intention of an entire criticism, undertakes a historical review and reconsideration of the formative factors for the present situation about civil rights in China, and based on a rough comparison of the ideology in this regard held by the people in China and in the Western world, this paper also interprets such a view, that is, the modernization of governing by law for any nation should not be a result from the sacrificing of its own law, culture and tradition. Only when the reform and the tradition are united organically, can the course of modernization be accomplished.