Internet Development and Its Influences on the Legal System and Legal Reforms in China

This article focuses on potential influences of internet use and development on China’s legal system and legal reforms. It examines this issue in both directions: how the Chinese government has been utilising the internet as a tool to strengthen its legal system and fulfil its reform goals, and how the public has responded in both responsive and proactive ways in an interactive and inter-evolving process. While the responsive public participation is answering initiatives from the government in nature, the proactive public participation is self-initiated. In recent years, it is the latter that has carried the greater weight in China’s internet politics. The Chinese government of the future may face challenges as it grapples with the question of how to simultaneously maintain information control while utilising internet technology as a tool to further its reforms.