Today 700 million Chinese citizens -- more than fifty-four percent of the population -- live in cities. The mass migration of rural populations to urban centers increased rapidly following economic reforms of the 1990s, and serious problems such as overcrowding, lack of health services, and substandard housing have arisen in these areas since. China's urban citizens have taken to the courts for redress and fought battles over failed urban renewal projects, denial of civil rights, corruption, and abuse of power. In Power versus Law in Modern China, Qiang Fang and Xiaobing Li examine four important legal cases that took place from 1995 to 2013 in the major cities of Wuhan, Xuzhou, Shanghai, and Chongqing. In these cases, citizens protested demolition of property, as well as corruption among city officials, developers, and landlords; but were repeatedly denied protection or compensation from the courts. Fang and Li explore how new interest groups comprised of entrepreneurs and Chinese graduates of Western universities have collaborated with the CCP-controlled local governments to create new power bases in cities. Drawing on newly available official sources, private collections, and interviews with Chinese administrators, judges, litigants, petitioners, and legal experts, this interdisciplinary analysis reveals the powerful and privileged will most likely continue to exploit the legal asymmetry that exists between the courts and citizens.
Today 700 million Chinese citizens -- more than fifty-four percent of the population -- live in cities. The mass migration of rural populations to urban centers increased rapidly following economic reforms of the 1990s, and serious problems such as overcrowding, lack of health services, and substandard housing have arisen in these areas since. China's urban citizens have taken to the courts for redress and fought battles over failed urban renewal projects, denial of civil rights, corruption, and abuse of power. In Power versus Law in Modern China, Qiang Fang and Xiaobing Li examine four important legal cases that took place from 1995 to 2013 in the major cities of Wuhan, Xuzhou, Shanghai, and Chongqing. In these cases, citizens protested demolition of property, as well as corruption among city officials, developers, and landlords; but were repeatedly denied protection or compensation from the courts. Fang and Li explore how new interest groups comprised of entrepreneurs and Chinese graduates of Western universities have collaborated with the CCP-controlled local governments to create new power bases in cities. Drawing on newly available official sources, private collections, and interviews with Chinese administrators, judges, litigants, petitioners, and legal experts, this interdisciplinary analysis reveals the powerful and privileged will most likely continue to exploit the legal asymmetry that exists between the courts and citizens.
Qiang Fang is associate professor of East Asian history at
the University of Minnesota-Duluth. He is coeditor of Modern
Chinese Legal Reform: New Perspectives and author of Chinese
Complaint Systems: Natural Resistance.
Xiaobing Li is professor of history and director of the
Western Pacific Institute at the University of Central Oklahoma. He
is the author or coeditor of several books, including Modern
Chinese Legal Reform: New Perspectives and A History of the Modern
Chinese Army.
An important contribution to the literature on the law in the
People's Republic of China (PRC), a polity which aspires to become
a law-based state. The authors posit a conflict between the
absolute power of the Chinese Communist Party and the
constitutional guarantee of equal justice for all Chinese citizens
irrespective of their station in life. They show that the power of
the party consistently trumps justice."" - Steven I. Levine,
coauthor of Arc of Empire: America's Wars in Asia from the
Philippines to Vietnam
""This work is a unique interdisciplinary scholarship in nature and
can conveniently serve assuch for the research in contemporary
China in the fields of history, Chinese study, legal study,
economics, political science, as well as sociology. While Western
scholarship on China's economic reforms focus more on government
policy-making, developmental process, or/and consequential
achievements, very few pay close attention to the inner circle
commotion and uproar often demanding legal reforms and political
restructure inside China."" - Pingchao Zhu, author of The Americans
and Chinese at the Korean War Cease-fire Negotiations, 1950 - 1953
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