Law on Display in China

Abstract

One of the major tasks facing the post- ”gang of four“ leadership of China is that of developing and consolidating a legal system. Success in this endeavour depends in great part upon the establishment of the people's faith in legality. The popular press often refers to the Cultural Revolution years as a time of absolute lawlessness1 in which arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, procedural violations, and baseless slander were the order of the day. Personal accounts of those years tend to confirm this view. They tend also to indicate that many people have little faith in the law and are cynical about the prospects for the success of legality in China. Undoubtedly, this cynicism stems from fresh memories of the types of abuse referred to in the press. And, because it overlays the traditional Chinese distrust of law as a method of resolving social disputes, it is a peculiarly intractable cynicism.