Editor's Note

      Fueled by access to the First Historical Archives of China in Beijing, the first wave of American scholars of Chinese legal history cut their teeth on Qing legal documents in the 1980s. Subsequently, Chinese legal studies in the United States were transformed overnight and have been growing steadily since. American scholars combined access to archival sources with theoretical insights from the social sciences to breach the fissiparous barrier between historical research and legal studies. The result has been the development of what some have called a “new legal history” of China.1 In recent years, the inauguration of the international collaborative project “Legalizing Space in China” (2011–2015) endowed by the French National Research Agency (ANR) and the establishment of the International Society for Chinese Law and History (ISCLH) in 2014 have marked an international renaissance in Chinese legal history. Given the ongoing digitization of central and local legal archives, we can safely anticipate more in-depth and wide-ranging studies of Chinese legal, social, and economic history in the years to come as the new legal history goes global.

      To varying degrees, each of the articles in this Focus has embraced the elements of the “new legal history.” HU Xiangyu examines amnesty policies and the punishment of fugitive slaves and criminals found guilty of harboring them. As HU deftly illustrates, because the loss of fugitive slaves directly impinged on the economic interests of the Manchu bannermen, decisions regarding amnesty policies entailed political and economic issues. These issues were particularly salient before the Kangxi when the Qing dynasty was in transition from military conquest to political consolidation. The dynasts needed to balance their economic interests with the need to adhere to Han legal norms. As HU notes, the Qing court adjusted the laws on fugitives in the face of social realities.

      Balancing ethnic sovereignty and respect for Chinese legal institutions is also central to my article on ideology and the legislative turn in eighteenth-century criminal justice. The proclamation of the “Sacred Edict of Sixteen Maxims” (圣谕十六条) of the Kangxi emperor and the Yongzheng emperor’s investment in the propagation of the edict were consistent with the late imperial’s use of moral exhortation and education to combat crime. Unfortunately, unprecedented population growth and intense economic commercialization created a more contentious and sometimes violent social environment. The Qianlong reign stands out as a transition period from moral education toward criminal deterrence. In this case, we see the innovativeness of Qing legislators who never abandoned ingrained Confucian legal principles, while they used the law to expand notions of criminality and impose severe punishments on individuals whom they considered “blatant offenders” (光棍).

      Examining financial institutional reform in Northeast China in the early twentieth  century through the lens of legal appeals of debts that Mongolian princes owed to civilian
creditors, HAI Dan demonstrates how legal judgments changed local society. Building on a solid archival foundation of provincial archival sources for Fengtian Province and Kirin Prefecture, HAI argues that previous studies relied on county archives without analyzing the appeals that took place at higher levels of administration. She skillfully reconstructs the interplay of institutional reform, land rights, and legal appeals of debt to demonstrate the intersections of law, society, and economy in the northeast at the turn of the twentieth century.

       Political transition and legal institutions are central to NA Heya’s exploration of the re-trial system of the Beiyang Period (1912–1928). Originally created to overcome the
shortcomings of county magistrates and to ease the transition to a modern judicial system, the re-trial system was an ambitious but under-resourced initiative. Showing the misperception of the re-trial system as merely a transitional stage in early Republican legal reform, NA cogently presents evidence that the re-trial system was also meant to realize judicial fairness and improve judicial procedures under the broad umbrella of modernization. NA’s article once again reveals the flexibility and vibrancy of Chinese judicial institutions. Like their counterparts in the Qing, judicial officials in the early Republican era drew upon the deep reservoir of China’s legal heritage to address the changing political landscape of the early twentieth century. Ultimately, the Beiyang government combined creative and practical reforms to compensate for the deficiencies of the county magistrates.

       Combining the solid empirical research and keen theoretical insights that are the hallmarks of the new legal history, the articles in this Focus provide insights into early
modern legal history. As a member of the first generation of American scholars with direct access to the First Historical Archives of China in Beijing in the 1980s, it has been a pleasure to witness the rise of this new generation of Chinese legal historians. As the research and training of these scholars demonstrate, they are diverse in both academic training and research agendas. Whether they were trained in history or law in China, the US or Japan, the contributors to this Focus collectively represent a cohort of highly skilled, cosmopolitan, and erudite legal historians who are poised to lead the field to new heights. As the study of legal history moves forward, this new wave of Chinese scholars will have the academic training and linguistic skills necessary to facilitate scholarly engagement among a growing body of researchers in Asia, Europe, and North America.

           The focus are consisted of four articles:

FOCUS 1.pdf

FOCUS 2.pdf

FOCUS 3.pdf

FOCUS 4.pdf