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3.Legal reform in China under globalization
Chinese legal reform has been undertaken by the Chinese Communist Party after its promulgation of the Communique of Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee. That Communique denounced the Maoist style of legal nihilism and stressed the importance of law in relation to social modernization. This fundamental change, under Deng Xiaoping’s leadership, is contrary to Mao’s policies given rise to the hope for the rule of law. The nation has experienced its first ever era of legal order. Under globalization, how to push Chinese legal reform? I think, first of all, we should establish the principle that the relation between economic globalization and legal construction. There is a nexus between the growth of a market economy and the development of the rule of law. Weber notes that: the universal predominance of the market consociation requires on one hand, a legal system the functioning of which is calculable in accordance with rational rules. On the other hand, the constant expansion of the market consociation has favoured the monopolization and regulation of all ‘legitimate’ coercive power by one universal coercive institution through the disintegration of all particular status-determined and other coercive structures, which have been resting mainly on economic monopolies. So, our legal reform is necessary not only to increase equity in society and raise productivity, but also to reduce uncertainty by minimizing costs adversely affecting economic growth, provide a rational anticipation to parties in international economic activities.
Chinese legal reform must distinguish public and private law, and establish the autonomy of private law. Law is seen in instrumental terms as a technical means of introducing market mechanisms in the economy. Similarly, jurisprudential ideas of private law are useful precisely because they allow the state to depoliticize the economy as well as to separate the private from public autonomy. In short, the development of legal equality does not extend to political relationships between state and citizens. That is means the new legal role of government is to provide the basis for market contracts and transactions, not to issue licenses and permit and in directly intervening in production, trade, and finance.
When china initiated market-oriented reforms, legal reform has also been in progress. Law must be used to establish stability and order for economic development. In order to fit with the pressure of economic globalization, China’s market-economy legal system must accommodate social and economic changes and fuifil its functional change. That is to say, to respond actual social demand, China’s market-economy law must fulfil the change from repressive, autonomous law to responsive law. The status and action of policy and principle will be more outstanding in China’s legal construction. China’s entry to WTO will accelerate development of China’s market-economy legal system, which will lead to the change from repressive, autonomous law to responsive law to satisfy actual social demand. It must be noted, during these years, China has modified or reformulated many laws such as financial laws, contract law, commercial law, foreign investment laws, banking law, capital market law, tax laws, company law, competition law, intellectual property laws etc.And chinese law has permit that a foreign law firm may open a representative offices dealing with bussiness transaction in China, though still have some restrictions. These laws encourage trade and investment liberlization, and promote Chinese economy.
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