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For Teachers: Power and Politics: China's Rule of Law: Changing with the Times?
by Michele Israel

With China's continued economic growth comes significant movement toward legal reform. Establishing new law schools, increasing the number of judges and lawyers, and supporting initiatives to build people's use and trust of the rule of law are among the efforts to strengthen the legal system. This development comes with substantial challenges and successes, especially in a nation where replacing the old with the new does not readily happen.

In this lesson, students identify and analyze the positive and negative effects of China's changing legal system. They examine the nation's rule of law to determine its improvement potential and build on their findings to design a program to promote a just and efficient legal system in China.

Grade Level: 9-12

Subject Matter: World History, Behavioral Studies, Economics

Time Allotment: Activities as stand-alones (other than the introductory and culminating activities) take two 50-minute class periods. Entire lesson requires six to eight class sessions.

Learning Objectives:

As a result of completing the lesson, the students will be able to:
  • recognize reforms China has made in its legal system
  • identify the benefits and deficits of China's legal reforms
  • analyze the relationship between China's government and legal system
  • explain how China's judges and lawyers function under varied law-related circumstances
  • describe how China's citizens understand, view, and negotiate the rule of law
  • predict the future of China's legal system
  • design a project or program to further China's legal reforms.
STANDARDS
McREL: Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning
http://www.mcrel.org
Level IV (Grades 9-12)

Behavioral Studies
  • Standard 4: Understands conflict, cooperation, and interdependence among individuals, groups, and institutions
    Benchmarks:
    2. Understands that social change, or the prospect of it, promotes conflict because social, economic, and political changes usually benefit some groups more than others (which is also true of the status quo)
    3. Understands that conflicts are especially difficult to resolve in situations in which there are few choices and little room for compromise
    7. Understands that even when the majority of people in a society agree on a social decision, the minority who disagree must be protected from oppression, just as the majority may need protection against unfair retaliation from the minority
    10. Understands that the decisions of one generation both provide and limit the range of possibilities open to the next generation
Economics
  • Standard 2: Understands characteristics of different economic systems, economic institutions, and economic incentives
    Benchmark: 4. Knows that property rights, contract enforcement, standards for weights and measures, and liability rules affect incentives for people to produce and exchange goods and services
  • Standard 9: Understands how Gross Domestic Product and inflation and deflation provide indications of the state of the economy
    Benchmark 5. Understands that economic growth can alleviate poverty, raise standards of living, create new employment and profit opportunities in some industries, but can also reduce opportunities in other industries
World History
  • Standard 44: Understands the search for community, stability, and peace in an interdependent world
    Benchmarks:
    2. Understands rates of economic development and the emergence of different economic systems around the globe
    6. Understands the role of ethnicity, cultural identity, and religious beliefs in shaping economic and political conflicts across the globe
    Understands how global political change has altered the world economy
    14. Understands how specific countries have implemented social and cultural changes
  • Standard 45: Understands major global trends since World War II
    Benchmarks:
    2. Understands causes of economic imbalances and social inequalities among the world's peoples and efforts made to close these gaps
    3. Understands connections between globalizing trends in economy, technology, and culture and dynamic assertions of traditional cultural identity and distinctiveness
Media Components Computer Resources
  • computers with Internet access
  • LCD projector and projection screen

Print Resources
  • Hsu, Stephen C., ed. UNDERSTANDING CHINA'S LEGAL SYSTEM. New York: NYU Press, 2003.
  • Peerenboom, Randall. CHINA'S LONG MARCH TOWARD RULE OF LAW. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
  • Turner, Karen G., James V. Feinerman, and R. Kent Guy, eds. THE LIMITS OF THE RULE OF LAW IN CHINA. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999.
Web Resources

PBS

General background Materials Needed
  • student graphic organizers
  • modified U.S.-China Legal Cooperation Fund grant application (see Teacher Preparation and Culminating Activity)
  • chart paper and markers

Assumptions

The following assumptions guide the proposed activities:

    Students:
    • are familiar with China's political, economic, and legal history
    • recognize the factors that have contributed to the nation's economic progress
    • recognize China's socioeconomic and human rights issues
    • have a solid grasp of the impact of China's development on the nation's citizens.
Teacher Preparation

Preview THE PEOPLE'S COURT and related online content before presenting them to your class. Decide whether the class will view the entire video or specific segments (others than those noted in the lesson) to expand lesson concepts and topics.

Bookmark relevant Web sites on each computer in your classroom, and/or create a handout that lists recommended sites and resources that supplement the lesson; or upload all links to an online bookmarking utility, such as www.portaportal.com, so that students can access the information on these sites. Make sure that your computer has the necessary media players, like RealPlayer, to show streaming clips (if applicable).

Provide students with necessary background on China to fill knowledge gaps or refresh their memories on topics relevant to the lesson plan.

Introductory Activity: Thoughts About China (one 50-minute class session)

Divide students into groups of three and assign one student in each group the role of recorder. Distribute a sheet of chart paper and one marker to each group recorder. Have students revisit what they know about China's economic development. Invite them to reflect on how this development has benefited and/or changed the nation. Have students also note in what areas China, despite its progress, has fallen short (i.e., human rights, labor, migrant workers, individual rights, government, etc.). Have them speculate on what China will look like in 20 years: how far it will have progressed, not only economically but also politically and socially. Group leaders should chart this information. Have each group post its chart; have all groups read the posted charts and as a class, come to consensus about the key sociopolitical and economic issues that frame China's past, present, and future.

Activity 1: Introducing China's Legal System

Have students revisit their findings from the introductory activity. Ask them to consider how China's legal system functions, based on what they know about the nation and its recent and ongoing development. Chart and synthesize their thoughts.

Direct the small student groups to "The People's Court Timeline" http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/china2/timeline.html. Ask students to review the timeline and speculate on what historic elements might continue to influence China's present rule of law. Invite each group to share its thoughts. Provide additional historic background where appropriate. If time permits, invite students to take the interactive quiz http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/china2/quiz.html.

Introduce THE PEOPLE'S COURT. Show Part I, "Legal Genesis" http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/china2/index.html#videoplayer. Distribute the accompanying graphic organizer, Legal Genesis. Instruct students to read the two-part worksheet, take notes as they watch the film, and then complete the worksheet in small groups afterward.

On the first chart, they identify the various reforms and the benefits and deficits associated with them. On the second chart, students elaborate on the causes of the identified benefits and deficits to ultimately recognize their combined effects. (Note: To guide students in the completion of the fishbone diagram, reference http://www.enchantedlearning.com/graphicorganizers/fishbone/. Redesign or reproduce the chart to facilitate ease of student learning.)

Have students discuss their findings and briefly detail improvements they view as necessary to enhance China's current legal processes (this leads into the culminating activity).

Activity 2: Negotiating Players' Roles and Place

Divide students into groups representing the parties involved in China's legal system, including judges, lawyers, migrant workers, rural residents ("peasants"), and Communist Party officials (add other groups that emerge from the film). Have each group reflect on how its respective party views, is engaged in, and negotiates the Chinese legal system.

Show students the following segments of THE PEOPLE'S COURT http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/china2/index.html#videoplayer that speak to these roles (if time permits, students may view each film segment in its entirety):

Part 2: Judges and Thieves
Time segments:
00:13-03:05
03:36-05:00
07:32-10.30

Part 3: Reaching Out
Time segments:
00.21-02.21
02:53-03:59
04:56-06:06

Part 4: Individual Rights
Time segments:
00.03-01:32
02:19-03:33
03:45-04:26
04:36-07:35
08:46-09:13

Ask groups to build on their reflection and the film segments to create profiles of the parties they represent. The profiles may reflect actual individuals portrayed in the films or a fictitious composite. They should reflect how the parties fit into the legal system. If students desire, they can transform the profiles into dramatic monologues that underscore how China's rule of law materializes in these individuals' lives.

Have the groups present their profiles and/or monologues. The class determines what elements of the roles and interactions are modifiable in terms of the system's improvement potential; in this, they highlight the circumstances that inhibit change. To promote discussion, pose one or all of the following questions (or similar ones):

  • What is the status of urban migrant workers in the labor force? Can this status evolve over time? What would have to occur on the legal, political, educational, and economic levels for such evolution to occur?
  • What is the relationship between the government (Communist Party) and the legal system? What role does the government play? Is this a favorable role? Explain.
  • What are Chinese expectations of its nation's legal system? How are these expectations realized or stifled? Are there instances where citizens are not clear on the rule of the law? Explain.

Culminating Activity: Proposing Change

Explain to students that with their knowledge of the current state of China's legal system, they are in a position to consider improvement/enhancement strategies.

Point students to The U.S.-China Legal Cooperation Fund http://www.uschinalegalcoop.org/. Have them review the site to understand the fund's purpose and the types of efforts it has supported in the past.

Divide students into groups of three. Distribute a modified grant application to each group. Instruct the students to develop a project/program that would support the enhancement of China's legal system. Be sure that they consider potential program/project obstacles, such as the connection between the Communist Party and the rule of law. Students should then write a proposal that their peers, serving as grant readers, will review and comment upon. If so desired, the class may select a proposal that would be most likely to receive a grant fund.

Extension Activities

  • Media Studies:
    There are those who argue that the media only highlights the negative elements. Have students review varied Western and Asian (Chinese) media to determine how China's legal system is presented. Ask students to create a visual media analysis (i.e., PowerPoint presentation) on this issue using actual media resources. The following represent some of those sources, in this case, speaking to the positive aspects of China's development as well as "Western media China bashing." These are examples of media that contrast against standard media reports on China.

  • Social Studies:
    THE PEOPLE'S COURT briefly addresses the topic of female roles in the Chinese legal system, noting that women have more power than they did in the past. Invite students to further study this notion and to research whether women's roles across careers, social status, etc., have improved as a result of the nation's economic development. Students can write a "white paper" on this topic or a journal article.

    Students can explore the tradition of mediation in Chinese society and how it continues to hold a place in conflict resolution today. Then they can create a strategy for combining mediation with more contemporary legal practices in China.

  • Mathematics:
    Students can determine what large corporations annually earn in China and how those monies figure into the nation's economic status (GDP, etc.). They can also calculate what migrant workers should rightfully earn, based on such earnings; the salaries of urban and educated workers, etc.



  
 
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