The Pros And Cons Of Legalism In China

From 600 BCE to 600 CE, China experienced changes in its political system in terms of the dissimilar ruling styles of different leaders, the rule under Legalism, and the influence of philosophical thinking like Daoism. These changes, influenced by aspects of the world and its own region, shaped China into its Classical state. In contrast, the concept of the Mandate of Heaven, the civil service system, and the significance of unity through a strong central government remained constant throughout China’s Classical period. These continuities followed through, staying essentially the same as an important part of China’s identity.

Legalists are in favor of an authoritarian state that is ruled by force. It claims that the supreme ruler is much more important than the ruled and that individuals must conform to standards of the authority. During the Qin Dynasty, which ruled China from 221 B.C.E. to 207 B.C.E, Qin Shi Huangdi was able to unite China after the Warring States Period by adopting legalism as a ruling philosophy. “Qin Shi Huangdi was a brutal ruler of China, but effective

China has changed in certain ways and remained the same in others from the early Golden Ages to the late 1900s. China has experienced a series of cultural and political transformations, shaping the lives of many Chinese citizens. Culturally, the country’s art and literature hardly changed for almost eight hundred years. Along with their culture, China remained politically the same from the beginning of the Golden Ages all the way until the 1800s. On the other hand, China’s government and society were restructured after new leaders took over. From a monarch to total communism, China’s society had a multitude of new ideas and policies they had to adapt to.

The idea of ruling a powerful government based on the principle of using two conflicting ideologies at the same time appeared foreign to most dynasties of early China. In early Chinese times, after the Period of the Warring States, two ideologies emerged: Legalism and Confucianism. Legalism stressed a strong central government that expressed harsh laws while Confucianism had a decentralized government, placing trust in conscientious and learned individuals to work together to solve political issues. These two schools of thought were in stark contrast to each other and, up until the Han dynasty, had never been combined with each other through government policy. The Qin dynasty, for example implemented a strict Legalist government while the

He enforced the thought system of Legalism which rewarded the good and punished the bad (Media Censorship: Good or Bad?). Shi Huangdi was a harsh and an unfair leader and as result of this, his leadership did not benefit the citizens in society (Media Censorship: Good or Bad?). Today, China’s government seems to follow Shi Huangdi’s methods of rule. The practical style of

Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism, are three Chinese ideologies in Classic China that held influence on how society should be, how to achieve order and what made government strong. Anyone that was a practitioner of these three philosophies would have had no idea how the Roman Republic or Empire worked in those regards. It would not be surprising if a Confucian, a Daoist and a Legalist had praise and dislike for how Rome was ran.

The central idea of legalism was to provide absolute power to the person in charge and the supremacy of authority. Legalists like Han Fei Zi

The Qin dynasty was perhaps one of the most revolutionary governments in the ancient world, but not in the modern progressive connotation of that concept. The Qin Emperor, Shi Huangdi, and his court executed an unprecedented departure from the Confucian ideals of the Benevolent and unobtrusive ruler and established a much more autocratic and centralized government. This new method of rule and philosophic thought was known as Legalism, which surfaced as a response to a time of great political instability. Therefore, Legalism promoted values that opposed those championed by Confucian thought, such as decisiveness, a lack of trust, and severe punishment, qualities that are reflected in The Legalist Teachings. "Changing the Laws" in one such passage in this document that stresses the importance of acting with confidence stating how "those who hesitate to act accomplish nothing" ¨ (Ebrey, Legalist Teachings, pg. 32).

In ancient China, many different rulers tried to unify and rule the country using a variety of methods – Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism to name a few. Each philosophy had its own set of rules of how people should act both in public and privately. The overall goal of each philosophy was to set a standard of acceptable living that would ensure harmony and success for the society. However, each was different and thus had different results. The best way for the people of China to succeed in a harmonious, respectable society occurred when both Confucianism and Legalism were combined.

Even though the Qin dynasty was seen as barbaric and brutal, the Han did implement some of the old Qin institutions into their new government. One of these institutions were the Commanderies. These were administrative divisions of land in which a governor would be appointed by the government and run it as the government or emperor wants it to be ran. This is institution is very useful for knowing how many people you have. When war comes and you need to draft able bodied men to go fight, you will know just how many you will be able to get. Another reason would be for tax purposes. It is also very useful to regulate the trade and growing of certain crops. Even more in depth than that the government can control what the children in the commanderies are taught and what propaganda they are seeing. Qin law is another thing that the Han used from the former dynasty. One example of this practice was the fact that women could bring up cases against men even though the women did not have the same rights as men. Punishments were also

In Communist China, thought confining and regulation for access to banned book are existing. The authoritarian government controls all the knowledge, spiritual and cultural disseminating channel, for example, media, publishing, films, drama, etc. (Chen 2006 p.5)

Legalism was very different from both Confucianism and Daoism because Legalism was the belief that people needed to be controlled because they were evil. Legalism is found in China and was founded by Han Feize. While it is unknown when Legalism was established, it is known that Han Feize was born in 280 B.C. so that gives a general time when legalism started. Legalism didn’t deal with much religious concerns but was more of a political philosophy instead. Citizens were seen to be responsible for actions of one another. A person who is considered guilty, their relatives and neighbors should be punished as well. This was a way to make sure that the laws are followed. The laws are strict with harsh punishments. People who spy on others and report anything that they do wrong to the authorities are thought to be doing right of the law. Both Legalism and Confucianism are belief systems within a group of people, not religions, and both are intended to lead to an orderly way of life, how they approach their teachings are complete opposed.

During the Warring State period of China, there were many philosophers who had different views of the governmental system. Legalism, argued by Han Feizi during the Warring State period of China, originated from the idea that humans must be governed by some strong external governmental power. On the other hand, Confucianism put more importance on living with virtue rather than the law itself. Like this, the view on humans of whether they can be trusted or not to govern themselves can hugely affect the governing style of a country. Even though countries are no longer run by certain philosophical ideas, the diverse views on humans or citizens play crucial roles in deciding the focus of aiming to attain unprejudiced society for everyone, the foundation of law, and it will definitely affect people’s everyday lives.

“One country, two systems” is an important formula that symbolized the stage of socialist modernization of Chinese Government. The Basic Law is one of the products produced under such kind of ideology. According Article 11 in the Law; “the systems and policies practiced in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region including the social and economic systems, the system for safe-guarding the fundamental rights and freedoms of its residents, the executive, legislative and judicial systems and relevant policies, shall be based on the provisions of the law. No law enacted by the legislature of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall contravene this law.” In other words, the Basic law is more superior in comparison with other laws in Hong Kong.

Over the past 66 years since 1949, China has been through a unique development and economic growth patterns. Particularly, during the “opening-up” reform era in 1978, China restructured the planned economy into the market economy to temporize the process of globalization (Gunter & Rosen, 2012). The rapid development of economics and opening policy environment incubate the increasingly presence of social groups (Gunter & Rosen, 2012;Yin, 2009). But still, compared with other Western countries, China is in the early stage of exploring and formalizing civil society and NGOs (Qi, 2011). Currently, the global influences and the power of China cannot be ignored. Scholars and practitioners hold positive attitudes toward China’s role in contributing to global development. Based on the structure of assessment tools (International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, 2014), this memo will briefly introduce the general legal system of civil groups in China.