Sino-Western Encounters: Chinese Law and Empire from Global Perspectives

This course examines the history of Sino-Western relations through the perspective of law. Today when we talk about Chinese law in Western contexts, it is often associated with impressions such as human rights abuse and rule of person instead of law. Ever since the early eighteen century, law has assumed a prominent role in the development of Sino-Western relation. Using law as a primary analytical framework, this course surveys a variety of issues arising from Sino-Western interactions during the nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries. Questions to be discussed include what role does the West, both as political actors and a source of ideology, play in shaping understanding of Chinese law and politics? How did judicial knowledge of business, sovereignty, and family structure change as China entered the global world of nation-states? How did understanding of law help construct and reconstruct notions of ethnicity, marriage, and gender over time in cross-cultural settings? You will be able to understand broad political processes such as modernization, colonization, and globalization, as well as their impact on everyday life. In addition to discussing how Western observers produced knowledge about Chinese law, we also examine the role of law in the Qing Empire’s expansion. The parallel of the two trajectories – one Chinese and one Western – will lead us to reconsider some of the assumptions in cross-cultural studies.