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4 - The Conception of Legality under Xi Jinping

from Part I - Ideology and the Party in Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2020

By
Ewan Smith
Edited by
Rogier J. E. H. Creemers  and
Susan Trevaskes
Rogier J. E. H. Creemers
Affiliation:
Universiteit Leiden
Susan Trevaskes
Affiliation:
Griffith University, Queensland
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Summary

In his study of Chinese Communist Party rule-of-law doctrine, Ewan Smith argues that in the Xi Jinping era, Party leadership has shifted the dominant understanding that rule of law functions to rectify institutions to the understanding that it ‘rectifies’ or disciplines individuals as state and non-state actors. The rule of law has been explicitly subordinated to ‘Party Leadership’, and the law has been recast as one form of social control among many. Moreover, the rule of law under Xi is explicitly superstructural. It yields to basic economic changes, including China’s development needs. Moreover, whereas earlier accounts suggest a foreign idea under cautious inspection, Party doctrine under Xi identifies rule of law in China as indigenous and largely unrelated to Western accounts. These shifts in the Party’s frame of reference in relation to rule of law see it now as not merely an ephemeral concept but a ‘superstructural concept’, relativised as ‘Socialist Rule of Law with Chinese Characteristics’ in the new era.

Keywords

Chinese Communist Party (CCP or Party)rule of lawdoctrineXi JinpingParty leadership
Type
Chapter
Information
Law and the Party in China
Ideology and Organisation
 , pp. 97 - 120
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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