Engaging the Law in China: State, Society, and Possibilities for Justice (review)

In the introduction to Engaging the Law in China, editors Neil J. Diamant, Stanley B. Lubman, and Kevin O'Brien establish the approach to law within a social context as a means to heighten awareness of the Chinese legal process. The contributors to this volume, who are mainly social scientists, achieve this lofty goal through the fieldwork they have recently done in the People's Republic of China (pp. 4-5). Approaching the law from a sociological perspective is imperative because law does not exist separate from the rest of society.¹ Additionally, the editors highlight the significance of history in the exploration of the law that is undertaken by the authors here (p. 4). Parsing any aspect of culture in a historical context catalyzes a basic awareness of norms and motivations, which provide enhanced frameworks through which a fuller understanding of current developments take place.²

Whereas much of the debate surrounding China's rule of law focuses on the shortcomings of the Chinese legal system, contributor Mary E. Gallagher offers a progressive approach to understanding how the rule of law is developing.³ In "Use the Law as Your Weapon," Gallagher explains: "[R]ights of citizenship and . . . the rule of law should be treated analytically as political processes rather than as gifts bequeathed or withheld from above" (p. 76). This attitude is vital for legal and social scholars working with the Chinese legal system or the legal education process. With the understanding of citizen's rights and rule of law in the context of a progression instead of a moral litmus test failed by Beijing, the readers of this volume will more effectively comprehend the advancement of liberty and law in the everyday lives of the Chinese people.

The interdisciplinary essays included here categorically present the multifarious nature of disputes in the use, development, and advancement of Chinese law and citizen's rights. In the first chapters of the book, the authors illustrate ways in which the people are advancing their interests against local governments and how the people fight for rights in their relationships with the business firms for which they provide labor. The following essays explore the legal duties that Chinese agencies impose on companies and how these legal duties are being enforced. Finally, the last section of the book evaluates recent developments in Chinese law enforcement and penal systems for their effect on the establishment of citizen's rights.

Illustrating a tactic familiar to that relied on by civil libertarians in the United States, Kevin J. O'Brien highlights the peasant's quest for justice in "Suing the Local State": "[V]illagers . . . frequently appeal to a higher court, hoping . . . the higher they go, the better the chance of locating a judge who can ignore the pleas of their local adversaries. This strategy sometimes works" (p. 38). Provided a peasant's-eye view of China's legal system, Westerners can better grasp the politics at play in the sensitive process of securing basic citizen's rights involving access to justice.

In addition to improperly affecting the ways in which verdicts are determined, local governments also obstruct the efforts of Beijing to affect justice in the enforcement of verdicts (p. 41). Just as the conflicts between federal and local governments in the American South during the civil rights movement were critical to securing greater liberties for African American citizens, the conflict between Beijing and local governments in China is an important aspect of securing the citizen's rights of China's disenfranchised peoples today. By revealing how this conflict is engaged in its various forms by the people, Engaging the Law in China contributes to a higher level of scholarly awareness in the areas of rights advancement and the internal politics of China.

The authors report that the drafting of new laws by the central government has enabled...