The Chinese Legal Tradition

The Chinese legal history of the last 60 years has been influenced by a Marxist perspective. According to that, the great Chinese historical periods can be divided into four broad periods of so-called slave law, feudal law, para-capitalist law, and finally socialist law. This simplification has been overcome in recent years, when a less ideology-oriented theory of legal history has been developed. Although for the purposes of this chapter we can limit ourselves to a superficial glance at the history of Chinese law, I prefer to follow a refined general perspective adopted in recent years by Yongping Liu in his Origins of Chinese Law — Penal and Administrative Law in its Early Development . 1 Then we will study the importance of Confucius and his central influence towards restorative justice and criminal reconciliation. 2 Finally, we will discuss the essential point of reference in studying the historical evolution of Chinese society, consisting of the time references given by the sequence of imperial dynasties. 3 These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.