This book was originally published in Chinese in October, 2014 right before the Fourth Plenum Meeting of the Eighteenth CPC National Congress, where the Party issued a decision on Several Important Issues on a Comprehensive Framework for Promoting the Rule of Law – a decision that had solicited the input from a group of legal experts prior to its public announcement. Arguably to a certain extent, this book, with its content, the discussions, and debates thus stirred, as well as book events and conferences organized thereof, has been an expression par excellence of a modern rule-of-law positionality, as it attempts to exert some positive influence on the direction of development for institutional reform in China. This is a target, the accomplishment of which requires that it tailors its accessibility (e.g., the length originally planned for this book and the level of complexity in its style of argumentation) to the need of such nonlegal professionals as policy-makers, government cadres, and the general public. What has remained unexplored, unelaborated, or unexplained now goes into the pages of this English version, presenting to the English-speaking audience a fuller, more nuanced, and greater detailed epistemic profile. The chapters have been expanded to incorporate more arguments, resulting in the change of the style of argumentation, thus demanding a few more words for the purpose of clarification.

The scandals in Chongqing of the arrest of the lawyer Li Zhuang, the murder of Neil Heywood, and the vice mayor (the so-called anti-mafia hero) defecting to the US consulate have revealed in a dramatic manner, albeit with a bit of comedic black humor, how powerful, ill-disciplined interested groups can create difficulties for economic reform and engender the disintegration of the power structure and distrust in government. For this very reason, since 2012, there has been an increasingly heightened social expectation of political reform. It is against this background that the Report of the Eighteenth Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress (hereinafter referred to as the “Report”) emphasized the rule-of-law thinking (法治思维) and rule-of-law style (法治方式) in handling the interactions between reform, development, and stability. A close examination of these two rule-of-law emphases can help us to discover a new way of thinking behind political reform.

Generally speaking, ideology is as much a concept with a strong sense of politics, as a system of beliefs that is class-based, especially the ruling class. Nevertheless, Manheim’s redefinition of ideology from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge (Wissenssoziologie) has greatly expanded its connotations and extensions (Mannheim 1936, 2009). A wider conception of ideology can be put forward here, considering the sea changes occurring in China’s society and economic structures since reform and opening-up in 1978, as well as such ground-breaking statements made by the Chinese Communist Party during its Fourth Plenum of the Eighteenth Party Congress “to regulate and restrain public power” and “to improve the public credibility of the judiciary.” Ideology can be defined as principles, values, morality, political conceptions, or even scientific knowledge knitted together with utilitarian ends – all phenomena that can be used by groups and organizations to support their claims, with its scope extended to cover the communal spirit of the legal profession and the principles in legal doctrines.

It has been argued that during the Western Zhou, Chinese monarchs adopted a multicentric governance model (Wu 2013, pp.137–57). The successive Spring and Autumn Period was a time marked by a collapse of rites and corruption of norms (礼崩乐坏), while the Warring States Period by great chaos of competing to be the hegemon. Both periods were characterized by a disruption of sociopolitical order en masse – a disruption so unsettling that Chinese history moved again toward the concentration of power and a unipolar model of political governance. Qinshi Huangdi, the emperor of Qin, unified China, ended its disunity, and created a highly centralized structure of political power. Lord Shang, a well-known minister in the unified Qin Empire, once suggested that “[o]nly when a sage rules the country will he strive for singleness of purpose.” The means to achieve this goal is by the law, with its guideline being a draconian legal system that is founded on strict reward and punishment. This effective control serves the purpose of building a sense of authority among the people. In the eyes of a legalist in ancient China, inasmuch as the monarch monopolizes power and uses it as an instrument for state governance, this can easily achieve its effectiveness. As Guanzi argued, “[m]ajesty cannot be wielded by two persons; government cannot have two gates. When a ruler uses laws to govern his country, he need only put them in place and that is all.” This practice of subjugating the law to political power has one archetype – Li Kui’s The Canon of Law (法经).

In an economy where the market is allowed free rein, there can easily emerge the so-called prisoners’ dilemma in game theory, a propensity toward “free-riding,” “the tragedy of the commons,” or ambiguous standards of utility calculation. Finally, it may result in a failure to adopt a Nash equilibrium to advance mutual interests. It may also result in market failure. From this it can be seen that a stable market economy depends on certain nonmarket institutions as its premise. It needs a rule of rules. Investors, traders, laborers, and consumers – be it individuals, groups, or enterprises, no matter how different their interest claims are – only a lucid knowledge of the rules of conduct, as well as of the consequences of violating these rules, can help them to make rational plans and decisions. Nevertheless, the rule of rules in the market cannot take form out of certain traditional practices. For instance, the market might serve as a place for execution, where “executing criminal offenders at busy marketplaces [aims] to arouse public sentiments of abhorrence” (in the Book of Rites, see Chen 2004, p.91); as the place to gather public opinions, where ancient kings “attended to public discussions” (from Intrigues of the Warring States, in Wang and Meng 1993, p.756); or simply to demonstrate the authority of the emperor, for “all culprits will be exempted when the state emperor passes the market” (from the Book of Zhou Rites, in Lin 1985, p.146). More important than these traditional practices is a universal application of rules to all equally, where the government should not privilege one group against another, or arrogate a power above the law. This is to shape a state that approximates free and fair competition with rules and regulation, without which the relations between and among groups can be difficult to coordinate and for a competition-based, efficient mechanism to function properly. For this very reason, all states where a modern market economy functions well have chosen the modern principle of the rule of law as their foundation.

The construction of the rule-of-law order (Rechtsordnung) has importance in defining the future development of China. For one thing, China will embrace a structure of social pluralism on the basis of its market reform and internationalization of the late twentieth century – a structure where social integration cannot be achieved via naked power or a strong authoritarian hand. It is of necessity that power is restrained to an appropriate degree. In addition, a new authority should be established to serve as the core to build social consensus and coordinate actions. By the way of comparison, the institutional design of a modern rule-of-law state (Rechtsstaat) can as much prevent power from encroaching upon liberty and autonomy as establish a uniform system of norms for a multilayered, pluralized society. At the level of value commitment, it legitimates the whole system, which is fundamental for us to call attention to when considering the reconfiguration of power structure or of the system of authority.

To end a book is to perform a paradoxical act. There is always a follow-up to the conclusion, a post-history to the post-history of the end. It is impossible to trace a definite point in time, to say, “This is where it all culminates. Before, there were only dispersed chapters, now there is conclusion, closure and full stop.” And yet, just like “books and other narratives … really do begin,” they really come to an end. To end is to cut off, to make an incision in time. No matter what will follow, from now on what came before is to be seen as a lead-up to this point. As Chekov famously (and allegedly) instructed: “If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off.” This instruction can also be turned around: it is the going off at last that gives the rifle’s introduction a purpose. In hindsight, the end is implicated in the beginning; it is this end that leads us back to that beginning. Just like “the beginning of a story … will … also have to be the story of a beginning,” the end of a story will also have to be the story of an end.