The Chinese have created the concept of “humanity, reason and law” and developed a mentality around it. Since Confucianism was highly valued in the Han Dynasty, especially during the Han, Wei, and Six Dynasties periods, the exploration and analysis of “humanity and reason” in judicial practice has been widespread. This has led to the “filtering” and examination of laws based on “humanity and reason.” The objective aspect of “humanity” refers to the facts and circumstances of a case, extending to the latent emotions of the people involved. Confucian scholars proposed the principle of “judging a case based on its original sentiments and emotions.” The subjective aspect of “humanity” refers to sentiment and emotion, such as the “willingness” or “unwillingness” of both parties in a divorce case. The combination of the objective and subjective aspects of “humanity” together with their “reason” form the essence of “humanity, reason and law” and is the main content of this concept. “Humanity, reason and law” serves as both a principle of legal formulation and a method of application and interpretation. In modern times, SHEN Jiaben and XIE Juezai were pivotal in the development of “humanity, reason and law” mentality. SHEN Jiaben facilitated the transition from tradition to modernity, while XIE Juezai integrated ancient and excellent traditions into revolutionary legal practices, giving it a modern significance.

The family system has always been effective in maintaining basic social order at the grassroots level in traditional Chinese society. At the beginning of the 20th century, Chinese society underwent tremendous changes, and traditional Chinese law was modernized; the family system became the most contested point of conflict between tradition and modernity, forcing lawmakers to be particularly cautious in making legal modernization. During the modern period, the political power struggles of various warlords led to chaos and disorder across the entire social legal system, yet legislative construction never ceased, and the legal modernization of traditional family systems became the focus of legislative endeavors for maintaining basic social order.

This work discusses a worldview and a methodology concerning ideological approaches by which Marxists can understand and transform the world, based on well-defined value truth, theory and philosophy. The work builds on the Report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which highlights the following priorities to which XI Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era must adhere: putting the people first, maintaining self-confidence and self-reliance, upholding fundamental principles and breaking new ground, adopting a problem-oriented approach, applying system thinking, and maintaining a global vision. Furthermore, this work argues that these priorities should be applied to promote the rule of law in China’s new journey. As the starting points of analysis and understanding, the meta-theory and “six must-dos” follow the general principles of Marxism in interpreting and promoting socialist concepts, theory, law-based path and legal system in the New Era with Chinese characteristics. The metatheory and the “six must-dos” provide the logical foundations and fundamental compliance with XI Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law. Only by applying these “six must-dos” well can we understand and implement XI Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law, enhance the rationality, initiative, foresight and creativity of our work in comprehensively promoting the rule of law in China.

As an important accomplishment of self-governance exploration for the Chinese nation, the Chinese legal system has contributed significantly to human rule-of-law civilization, and should be reinterpreted from three dimensions: historical tradition, prevailing practice, and future development. Following the constant logic of rule-of-law development in China, Chinese rule-of-law modernization marks a new era of the Chinese legal system and is a specific embodiment of Chinese modernization in the domain of rule of law. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has explored the China’s socialist rule-of-law practice with Chinese characteristics, carried forward the essence of fine Chinese rule-of-law culture, and learned from others’ important rule of-law achievements, modernizing the rule of law for the needs of China. Furthermore, XI Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law, adapting to the times to promote the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, understands and grasps the basic laws of national governance, the laws of socialist rule-of-law building and the principles of law-based humane civilization development. The Chinese legal system has thereby been revised and expanded through linking history with reality, the international scene with the domestic one, and theory with practice. Surely, the updated Chinese legal system with China characteristics and with world significance will return to global centre-stage in rule-of-law development. Also, the updated Chinese legal system in the new era will embrace the revival of Chinese rule-of-law civilization, while the Chinese rule-of-law modernization will advance the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Cross-border data flows not only involve cross-border trade issues, but also severely challenge personal information protection, national data security, and the jurisdiction of justice and enforcement. As the current digital trade negotiations could not accommodate these challenges, China has initiated the concept of secure cross-border data flow and has launched a dual-track multi-level regulatory system, including control system for overseas transfer of important data, system of crossborder provision of personal information, and system of cross-border data request for justice and enforcement. To explore a global regulatory framework for cross-border data flows, legitimate and controllable cross-border data flows should be promoted, supervision should be categorized based on risk concerned, and the rule of law should be coordinated at home and abroad to promote system compatibility. To this end, the key is to build a compatible regulatory framework, which includes clarifying the scope of important data to define the “Negative List” for preventing national security risks, improving the cross-border accountability for protecting personal information rights and interests to ease pre-supervision pressure, and focusing on data access rights instead of data localization for upholding the jurisdiction of justice and enforcement.

The 5000-years uninterrupted Chinese legal culture embodies the political and legal wisdom of the Chinese nation and is a source of pride for the Chinese nation. It has provided extremely rich resources and treasures for the construction of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics. It has been inherited vertically, evolved intergenerationally and reserved continuously. Originating from both the historical legal system and from Marxist historical materialism, the Chinese legal system has profoundly influenced neighboring countries. The comprehensive governance of politics, law, and morality in ancient China, as reflected in the Rites of Zhou, a book of the Western Zhou Dynasty (1027-771 BC) on cultural ideology and political structure, provides an early work on the governance of ancient China. Chinese legal culture has remained progressive, and with the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, it is now important to promote Chinese legal culture for construction of the Chinese legal system in the new era.

Currently, research on the Chinese legal system is flourishing, and more and more issues are worthy of exploration. The Chinese legal system is unique among the five major legal systems in the world. It is the only ancient secular legal system, and the only ancient secular legal system to have been disseminated by non-coercive means. The openness of the Chinese legal system is a powerful proof that traditional Chinese law plays a role in importing and exporting legal policies and measures from and to other states. Indeed, these issues are important in research on the Chinese legal system, and a correct understanding of them can help to comprehensively understand traditional Chinese legal culture. It is essential to deepen the research on the Chinese legal system to contribute to its revival and to the inheritance of traditional Chinese legal culture. In addition to comprehensive discussions, it is also necessary to fill gaps and advance the research on the Chinese legal system.

1.HAO Tiechuan, 中华法系的创造性转化 (Creative Transformation in Chinese Legal System), 1 东方法学 (Oriental Law), 13–25 (2022). Abstract Through the analysis of 18 characteristic cases in the current Chinese rule of law system, it is pointed out that the creative transformation of the Chinese legal system is an important way to form a characteristic of the current Chinese rule of law. Through the analysis of 102 aspects of the Chinese legal system, it is pointed out that if feudalistic content is eliminated, other contents of the Chinese legal system can be creatively transformed. Therefore, to carry out the creative transformation of the Chinese legal system, we must transform from unconscious and subtle changes to conscious and rational choices. The reference standards for the creative transformation of the Chinese legal system are: First, the socialist core value system and socialist core values. Second, the modern rule of law thinking and basic values of the rule of law. Third, the relevant international human rights conventions that China has participated in. The operating methods of the creative transformation of the Chinese legal system mainly include basic inheritance, partial inheritance and new interpretations of old words. China is the only survivor of the four major ancient civilizations in the world. The Chinese legal system is the only one that has no religious background and is human-oriented. Therefore, realizing the creative transformation of the Chinese legal system is an unshirkable historical mission.

Legal practices from ancient to modern times have shown that law is closely related to language and writing. To compensate for the inherent uncertainty of language and writing, current laws use relatively sophisticated textual expression structures. Most of the lofty slogans and principles introduced from the West is nothing but a vain name and brings substantial harm. The concepts, systems, legislative techniques, and legal texts of traditional law have specific critical and reference significance for today’s legislation. It is especially significant for us to be vigilant about the reflection of traditional law on legal modesty.

Whole-process people’s democracy profoundly reflects the features of socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics, and comprehensively and systematically reveals the concept of people’s democracy as providing important mechanisms of national and social governance. Based on the traditional democratic understanding of democracy as majority rule, whole-process people’s democracy emphasizes the universality and extensive range of democratic governance, but also has the natural value defects of democratic value itself. Therefore, we must organically combine democracy with the values of the rule of law and human rights, to build a well-defined governance order based on people’s democratic value. The whole process in the “whole-process people’s democracy” has really resolved the situation of people’s “absence” from many links of state power operation caused by over-emphasizing the election-democracy in the Western capitalist democratic system. Through the people’s extensive participation and effective supervision, the state power operation mechanism based on the fundamental political system, the people’s congress system, has been ensured to be always in the framework of people’s democratic governance. This effectively realizes the people’s sovereignty and is consistent with the declaration that “all power in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) belongs to the people,” stipulated in the Constitution of China. To improve the governance efficiency of whole-process people’s democracy in practice, we must bring it onto the rule of law, and use the rule of law philosophy and methods to reasonably and effectively resolve all kinds of theoretical and practical problems.

The concept of whole-process people’s democracy can be analyzed in terms of four the rule of law dimensions: continuous democracy, authentic democracy, extensive democracy and consultative democracy. Continuous democracy means that democracy provides a continuous and uninterrupted mechanism in terms of stage, time and space, which can ensure the continuous participation of the people in the management of state and social affairs. Authentic democracy is not only embodied creation of opportunities and conditions for the people to have more channels and methods of participation in the management of state and social affairs, but is also reflected in the process of democratic practice, including the protection of legitimate rights and interests of the minority. Extensive democracy means that the people are fully and deeply involved in the management of state and social affairs as well as their own affairs, from the operation of the state system to social life at the community level, and from pre-election to post-election. Consultative democracy is a means of realizing people’s democracy in the whole process. It applies consultation and seeks truth, aiming at building consensus. Moreover, it integrates various channels of consultation, and integrates democracy into all aspects of the work of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and government and in all aspects of the people’s political and social life.

CHEN Sisi, “春秋决狱”形成的法律文化模式及其功能 (The Legal Culture Model and Its Functions Formed from “the Judgment of Chunqiu”), 12 学术探索 (Academic Research), 95–107 (2022) .

Academic News

Digital economy empowers the further pursuit and materialization of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It has social efficacy and is governance-oriented in the process of economic globalization, but also has multi-faceted predicaments of governance as well as obstacles to the rule of law. Therefore, the BRI digital economy governance should mediate four relationships at the macro level, and implement the rule of law from three dimensions with the purpose of contributing to constructing global digital governance system.

Book Excerpt

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held in 2012, XI Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, has made a series of vital expositions on the promotion of modernization of the national governance system and capacity in line with the rule of law. The law is the most important tool for governing a country, and the rule of law supports the national governance process and capacity. Promoting the rule of law on all fronts is an essential requirement for developing socialism with Chinese characteristics and promoting the modernization of the national governance system and capacity. Comprehensive law-based governance in all areas should be promoted to advance the modernization of national governance. Furthermore, law-based thinking and methods should be used to address difficulties and challenges faced in this modernization process.

Book Description

Value-added Tax (VAT), a turnover tax levied on the value appreciated in commodities production, circulation and sale, has been widely practiced by economies worldwide for its neutrality. From the international perspective, European Union VAT and New Zealand VAT stand out as characteristic models of VAT development and reform history. With changing economic development models and the growth of e-commerce businesses, VAT systems have been upgraded to meet taxation challenges brought about by the digital economy. Recently, VAT policies and measures have been introduced particularly to combat the COVID-19 impact. In China, the VAT system has been reformed constantly over the past 40 years and has been converging with international practice. China now needs to address emerging VAT issues through legislation, tax incentives, and tax-rate grades so as to meet challenges in VAT collection and management and to suit the “new normal” of economic development.

The educational function of law is to inherently and positively standardize and institutionalize core ideologies and values by directly affecting those ideologies, incorporating the outlook on values, ethics, life and honor and disgrace. The purpose of the Legislative Revision Plan of Integrating the Core Socialist Values into the Construction of Rule of Law, adopted by China’s central government in 2018, is to comprehensively strengthen the educational function of law under the guidance of the socialist core values within the entire socialist legal system, to consolidate a solid socialist ideological foundation, and to improve ideology and ethics across China. As a family is the cell of a society and the first classroom of life, family value is not only at the core of a family but also an essential part of a society. The legal system relating to family property, based on the family property system and spousal inheritance right, can rationally adjust the family property relationship; this system can combine, cultivate and carry forward socialist core values, guide and cultivate ethics, and promote family values, family culture and family traditions. Moreover, it can educate people to formulate an appropriate outlook on life, values and money and sense of honor. Today, the legal system of family property, such as the joint possession of marital incomes and the unlimited right to spousal inheritance, has shown a negative effect on educational function, since it was born during the period of the relative shortage of family property in the past. Therefore, the Civil Code should follow the socialist core values, and update and innovate the family property legal system and thereby provide an effective and efficient path to rectify the hitherto negative effect on educational function of the family property legal system.

The fine family values incorporated into China’s Civil Code can effectively resolve the contradiction between the Marriage and Family Law’s specific socialization requirements and the relatively insufficient socialization they present after they have been incorporated into the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China. The fine family values clauses can reflect the ethics of Marriage and Family Law by introducing the family’s subject position in identity law, by specifying the scope and source of public order for judging behavior legitimacy in family relations, and by checking and balancing the tendency of turning Marriage and Family Law into Property Law. The clauses’ normative effect includes the organizational effect aimed at regulating family power, social power and state power, and the advisory effect for promoting moral education. However, its core lies in its behavior normative effect for guiding the judicial process and its adjudicative normative effect. In terms of specific application, we should focus on realizing the normative function of the fine family values clauses. This function includes proving the relationship between a guardian’s “lack of control and education” and external damage caused by family members, balancing family stability and personal freedom value, limiting seeking improper property interests by means of identity behavior and creating independent legal interests.

XI Jinping, General Secretary of Central Committee of the Communist Party of China(CPC), made an important speech (Speech) on China’s path of advancement of human rights at a group study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on February 25, 2022. Adherence to law-based protection of human rights and improvement of the legal mechanism of protection of human rights are important requirements for firmly following China’s path of human rights development. To improve the law-based mechanism of guarantee of human rights, the principles of respecting the people’s principal position and removing systematic and institutional barriers should be adhered to. The Constitution should be comprehensively implemented to promote record and review of new laws presented by legislatures, and to safeguard its authority. Innovations of human rights theory should be accelerated, along with faster construction of a human rights academic system, of a human rights academic system, and of a human rights discourse system, for meeting China’s needs in the new era. A sound legal mechanism of guarantee for human rights can better guarantee people’s better life. Furthermore, China should actively participate in global human rights governance and make appropriate contributions.

Advancing the rule of law in domestic and foreign-related affairs in a coordinated manner is a significant strategic measure put forward by the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government amid global changes of a magnitude not seen in a century. It is an important content of XI Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law and also a new practice facing China’s high_x0002_level opening up. To further explore and clarify the basic theory and approach of cultivating high-quality talents in the rule of law in foreign-related affairs, this article analyzes and summarizes the practice of foreign-related rule of law in the context of globalization. This is done from the perspectives of territory, normative, subject, and legal application dimensions. Key factors include the significant differences in official languages and legal cultures between jurisdictions, the closure of the legal profession admission mechanisms, and the inter-disciplinary requirements for talents praticing the rule of law in foreign related affairs. For this reason, the path for talent cultivation in this field in China for the new era can be explored through clarifying requirements for training and qualification, strengthening international cooperation, and building a multi-level mechanism for the cultivation and utilization of talents practicing the rule of law in foreign-related affairs.

Order comes first in legal values, while laws should maintain the consistency and stability of order. The proposed China's environmental code (Code) shall restate the prevailing environmental legal norms and optimize the prevailing environmental legal order. From the perspective of stabilizing the legal order, common regulations of General Part of the Code should connect with the constitution and the prevailing environmental laws, determine the legal values of the Code-governing environment, and provide the foundation and basic framework for each subsequent part of the Code. Therefore, common regulations of the Code should recognize and support the constitution order and bolster the emerging eco-environment legal order relating to the eco-civilization construction. They should be coherent, value-orientated, and independent, inheriting the general framework of the prevailing Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and other specific environmental laws, and developing the applicable norms. Specifically, consistently with the legislative purposes, the Code common regulations should recognize the objectives of construction of eco-civilization and pursuit of social, economic and ecological sustainable development, and this pursuit should be carried out based on the basic principles; the application scope of ecological environment should be redefined in order to maintain the ecological value and overall ecological order; the clause on basic environmental obligations and the clause on citizens' environmental rights should be defined with the national environmental protection obligations as the main thread and the multi-player legal relationship as the framework; and the national environmental protection obligations should be preliminarily delivered with three clauses: national environmental protection financial support, environmental publicity and education, and global environmental governance.

The digital economy can significantly deepen supply-side reform and upgrade consumption and lifestyle in the new era. While having made great achievements, the digital economy has also introduced many regulatory risks and troubles. The basic logic of the digital economy is the eco-industrial chain based on data and big data resources. Since the current data property rights system is unclear, various forms of competition based on data resources have seriously challenged existing laws and their implementation mechanisms. To address the problems of an insufficient institutional supply and weak implementation, and to facilitate the growth of the digital economy, we should update the regulations’ concepts and methods, establish a new logic of system regulations, improve the implementation mechanisms by using the overall and multi-level regulation thinking, and build a multi-dimensional, diversified and all-round economic rule of law regulation system led by the government with the participation of operators, consumers and social organizations. This regulation system relies on the synergy between top-level design and top-level promotion, respects the balance of multiple interests, and finally realizes the three-dimensional integration of efficiency, fairness and security.

The positioning of anti-monopoly law depends on its unique value, goal and function. From the beginning, anti-monopoly law has had a great political and economic mission, and can become a “super law” with a grand value goal and a powerful function in economic adjustment. The uniqueness of the Internet, in capital, technology and business models, easily allows Internet platforms to grow anarchically, and to have a high correlation with anti-monopoly concerns. Internet anti-monopoly policy should first expand its thinking and elevate its stance in macro value, and seek appropriate legal and economic technical paths. China’s Internet platform anti-monopoly policy cannot simply follow today’s international and superficial trend, which does not contribute to positive experience and may conceal various interests. Instead, China’s Internet platform anti-monopoly policy should actively follow, respect and serve the substantial development interests of China’s digital economy, operating in a timely fashion and at the right location, in ways that are opportune, moderate and modest. It should always be committed to the innovation and development of China’s Internet industry and to international competitiveness. Internet anti-monopoly policy should adhere to the rule of law, build a corresponding rule system, ensure objectivity, neutrality and rationality, and prevent irrationality and over-excitement.

Chinese modernization should be utilized to advance the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts and build a modern socialist country in all respects under the rule of law. Building a modern socialist country under the rule of law requires coordinated steps to promote the rule of law around the needs of socialist modernization and integrate the process inseparably with various social undertakings. The promotion of the rule of law in all aspects is essentially a matter of comprehensive law-based national governance and social management. Such promotion should follow the new requirement of exercising law-based governance on all fronts, respond to the new expectations of the people for the rule of law, and promote the rule of law in China with higher standards, thereby advancing the socialist rule of law system and the rule of law China with Chinese characteristics.

Although the development of the digital economy has not changed the basic principles and theories of economic law, it has impacted its related specific theories. Thus, it is particularly necessary to further develop its space theory, entity theory and behavior theory, since space, entity and behavior are the three key factors affecting its application scope. Furthermore, “space diversification,” “entity online platform” and “behavior informatization” based on the digital economy, have created new regulatory issues and need the above specific developments, based on which the modulation theory, information theory, risk theory and rule of law theory of economic law can then also be further developed. Thus, all these developments combined are conducive to advancing the economic-law’s operation theory, norm theory, as well as the ontological and axiological research. In addition, such developments are conducive to strengthening the convincing power and guiding power of economic law theories for the rule of law construction related to the digital economy, to promoting a new development landscape and a modern economic system, and to realizing Chinese modernization.

Basic law + separate laws and codification are the two modes countries worldwide adopted for enacting environmental legislation in line with their national circumstances and legal traditions. Following the goal of establishing a modern environmental governance system, the mode moderate codification should be China's choice for compiling an environmental code. Moderate codification is a dynamic and open substantive code-compiling mode. Based on idea changes and method innovations, it builds a basic logic system with the goal value as the core and the tool value as the technical method. An environmental code following the moderate codification mode can use the structure of General—Specifics. The General Part extracts common factors and elaborates the legislative purposes, basic principles, management rules and lead measures that dominate the overall situations and are universally applicable. Then each Specific Part (they form Specifics) compiles and integrates the relevant prevailing laws and regulations, and further regulate environmental factors. Therefore, the cornerstone concept of eco-environment should be defined and the environmental legal relationships should be clarified. Environmental code derives from dual source-of-law and considers sustainable development as its value goal, takes the eco-environment as its cornerstone concept, and regards the legal relationship as its systematic tool for constructing its framework system.

The success in compiling China's Civil Code benefits from factors such as China's complete system of civil law statutes, the methodology of the Pandekten System, and the private-law attributes of civil laws, etc. To construct the framework of China's environmental code, it is necessary to reference that success for theoretical and structural innovations. In addition, the fundamental features and inherent issues of China's existing environmental law system, such as its breadth, the extensiveness of origins of environmental law, the multiple implication of environmental legal relations, and the compound nature of the environmental legal liability system, should be taken into account. The layout structure of General—Specifics should be adopted for compiling China's environmental code, while moderate codification and extraction of the common factor (vor die Klammer zu ziehen) for connection with applicable rules of specific laws should serve as construction principles and methods for compiling the framework of China's environmental code. The environmental code should have five parts: General ; Pollution Prevention and Control ; Nature Conservation ; Green and Low-Carbon Development ; and Ecological and Environmental Responsibility.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) has created a new path for Chinese modernization and a new form of human civilization while leading the people in advancing a great social transformation. Chinese modernization of the rule of law is an integral part of this new path. With a high degree of historical initiative and consciousness, the CPC has solidly grasped the basic regularity of China’s legal development based on actual national conditions, and has successfully pioneered, upheld, and expanded Chinese modernization of the rule of law. Legal construction during the New-Democratic Revolution has reflected the early exploration of Chinese modernization of the rule of law. The development of the rule of law during the period of socialist revolution and construction has laid a preliminary foundation for the formation of Chinese modernization of the rule of law. The new great social transformation of reform and opening up has further promoted such modernization. The construction of a law-based China in the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics marks a further expansion and deepening of modernization. Therefore, Chinese modernization of the rule of law is rooted in the Chinese land, conforms to the characteristics of China, and draws on the excellent achievements of the world’s legal civilization. It encapsulates profound historical, theoretical, and practical logic, and has created a new model of modernization of the rule of law in a civilized society.