Socialist Legal Theory in Deng Xiaoping’s China

After assuming supreme power in the People’s Republic of China in late 1978, Deng Xiaoping was most insistent that law was essential to socialist modernization and that Maoist legal nihilism had to be combated. He inaugurated a massive program to reform and restructure the legal system. Accordingly, the Party and State Constitutions were revised, law was codified,judicial organs were reorganized and the academic discipline of legal studies was revived. The aim was to replace what was referred to as the ‘rule of persons’ by the rule of law. By the time of his death in early 1997, much had been achieved. Though defects in the system remain and have been highlighted by many scholars, it is fair to say that China’s socialist legal system has gone far beyond the old instrumental notion of safeguarding the rule of a Marxist Party. In the context of promoting economic modernization, law has increasingly been seen as the principal means for resolving conflict and maintaining social order. While many scholars have noted Deng’s limited success in instituting the rule of law,’ one must concede that China is no longer faced with the legal nihilism of the Maoist era.