Building the rule of law in early twentieth-century China (1905–1926)

In the last years of the Qing empire, China undertook several major steps toward reforming its legal system in accordance with Western legal practices. Legal reform was part of a larger program of late Qing liberalization, but it also was needed to convince the foreign powers to relinquish extraterritoriality. When the Republic was founded in 1912, legal construction was accelerated. Initially, reformers concentrated their efforts on creating new institutions, such as courts, laws, legal personnel, and prisons. As these institutions began to operate, new principles emerged as Chinese courts and legal specialists wrestled with how to reconcile traditional and new laws and practices. At the Chinese Supreme Court, justices were engaged in articulating these new principles and carving out a role for China\u27s infant judiciary as a source of authority and power. In the fall of 1922, China\u27s reformed jurists confronted government authorities in Beijing for unfairly arresting Cabinet Member Luo Wengan. Luo himself demanded a full investigation and trial, refusing to leave prison until the legal process had run its course. These actions indicate that reform of the legal system had moved from building new courts and appointing judges to the beginnings of fundamental change of Chinese legal culture. But failure to achieve political stability in the early 1920s undermined these nascent reform efforts. When foreign representatives convened in Beijing in 1926 to assess changes in the legal system, they acknowledged that major institutional changes had taken place. Ultimately, however, they refused to relinquish extraterritoriality until China took additional steps to improve the administration of justice, especially with regard to the elimination of civil and military interference in the legal system. In the end, two decades of legal reform had fundamentally changed the system, but rule of law remained elusive. In the absence of good governance, only limited legal reform could be achieved. Nevertheless, republican reformers showed great potential for steering China down a new legal road. The foundations they laid are still relevant today, as are the problems they faced