1.

Academic Year: 2022-23

2. Course Code: CCCH9026
3. Course Title: Rule of Law and China's Economic Miracle
4. Course Description:
This course aims to explore an intriguing puzzle in the rise of contemporary China: How has
the country achieved rapid economic growth in the past four decades in the absence of
Western-style legal and democratic systems, both of which are conventionally viewed to be
essential to economic development? Arising from this puzzle is heated debate worldwide over
the relative efficacy of the so-called Beijing vs. Washington Consensuses. In order to unwind
this puzzle, the course examines three key issues: (i) how China’s economic reform can be
understood in the historical and comparative context, specifically the relevance of the East
Asian developmental states model; (ii) what role China’s legal system as well as the
relationship between law and politics has played in the country’s economic development; (iii)
whether China’s experience can be called “growth without rule of law,” and whether it
presents viable alternative that may inform other developing economies in their pursuit of
prosperity. The course covers the following aspects of the Chinese legal and political systems
in investigating their relationship to the country’s economic growth: legitimacy building,
decentralization as a constitutional system, courts, governance of state-owned enterprises,
formal and informal financing, property rights protection, environmental protection, labor
regulation, China’s global economic engagements, and cyber governance.
5. Assessment Ratio: 100% coursework
6. Offer Semester: First Semester
Day of Teaching: Wednesday 16:30-18:20 at LE5
7. Offering Department(s):
Department of Law
8. Teacher(s):
Dr Z. Liu
Department of Law, Faculty of Law
Email: [email protected]

9. Study Load
Activities Number of hours
Lectures 20-24
Tutorials 10
Reading / Self-study 49
Practicals 8
Assessment: Presentation (incl preparation) 29
Total: 120
Note: The student workload should be 120 - 180 hours, with
a general Common Core goal of approximately 120-140
hours.

10. Course Learning Outcomes and Alignment with Common Core Programme Learning
Outcomes
Course Learning Outcomes – On completing the course, Alignment with
students will be able to: Common Core
Programme Learning
Outcome(s)
1. Articulate the role of legal and political reforms in CC PLO(s): 1,2,3,4
China’s economic growth, particularly the reforms aimed
 at establishing market mechanisms and separating the
Communist Party and the Chinese state.
2. Evaluate the effects of major reform projects and CC PLO(s): 1,2,3,4
processes in China’s legal and political systems that are
associated with building a market economy, including
positive achievements and remaining deficiencies and
challenges.
3. Use case studies to demonstrate the dymanism of CC PLO(s): 1,2,3,4
China’s social and economic transition during the reform
era.
4. Employ a cultivated sensitivity to cultural, social, CC PLO(s): 1,2,3,4
historical and political-economy issues that arise in the
implementation of rule of law reform projects and in the
transformation of the Party-State in China.
5. Explain China’s economic miracle in comparison with CC PLO(s): 1,2,3,4
the experience of other developing countries with or
without well-defined rule of law and vigorous political
democracy, such as India and Russia, and assess whether
China has shown an alternative possibility of modernity.

11. Assessment Tasks

Assessment Details of Assignment Weighting Alignment with

Method Course Learning
Outcome(s)
Lecture and tutorial Active participation in tutorial 20% CLOs: 1, 2, 3, 4,
participation discussion 5
Essays Writing one essay (2,000-2,500) 60% CLOs: 1, 2, 3, 4
on assigned topics discussed in Due: Dec.
lectures based on understanding 10
and reflection of reading
material, class discussion, as
well as individual research
Presentation Recording an oral presentation 20% CLOs: 1, 2, 3, 4
on one of the essays (15 Due: Dec.
minutes, including Q&A) 10

12. Course Content and Topics

Notes:
(1) Readings will be on the online learning system.
(2) We will discuss the reading materials and the content of the lectures in our tutorial
session. Please read the materials before each tutorial and prepare to speak.

Topic 1 (Sep. 13)

The Legal System of China: An Introduction
Reading:
Yifan Wang, Sarah Biddulph and Andrew Godwin. (2017) A Brief Introduction to the
Chinese Judicial System and Court Hierarchy.
[Optional] Jacques DeLisle, China’s Legal System, in Politics in China, chapter 7.
[Optional] Donald Clarke, Peter Murrell, and Susan Whiting, “The Role of Law in
China’s Economic Development,” in China’s Great Economic Transformation, Chapter
11, pp. 375-428.

Topic 2 (Sep. 20)

The Judiciary I: Introduction
Kwai Hang Ng and Xin He (2017). Embedded Courts. Judicial Decision-Making in
China. Cambridge University Press. (Introduction)

Topic 3 (Sep. 27)

The Judiciary II: Problems
Reading:
Kwai Hang Ng and Xin He (2017). Embedded Courts. Judicial Decision-Making in
China. Cambridge University Press. (Introduction)

Topic 4 (Oct. 4)
The Judiciary III: Progress
Reading:
Zhang, T., & Ginsburg, T. (2019). China's turn toward law. Va. J. Int'l L., 59, 306. (Part
II)
Yuxia Zhang and Zhuang Liu (2023). The Rise and Limits of the Chinese Judiciary.

Topic 5 (Oct. 25)

Performance-based Regime Legitimacy
Reading:
Zhao, D. (2009). The Mandate of Heaven and Performance Legitimation in Historical and
Contemporary China. American Behavioral Scientist, 53(3), 416–433.
Yang, H., & Zhao, D. (2018). Performance legitimacy, state autonomy and China's
economic miracle. In Debating Regime Legitimacy in Contemporary China (pp. 174-
192). Routledge.

Topic 6 (Nov. 1)
Decentralization and Growth I: Federalism
Reading:
Montinola, Gabriella, Yingyi Qian, Barry R. Weingast (1995). Federalism, Chinese Style:
The Political Basis for Economic Success in China. World Politics, 48(1).
Zhou, Qiren. (2009). The unfolding of Deng's drama. China Economic Journal, 2(2):
119–32.
[Optional] Qian, Yingyi. 2000. "The Process of China's Market Transition (1978-1998):
The Evolutionary, Historical, and Comparative Perspectives." Journal of Institutional
and Theoretical Economics, 156(1): 151-171.

Topic 7 (Nov. 8)
Decentralization and Growth II: RDA
Reading:
Xu, C. (2011). The Fundamental Institutions of China’s Reforms and
Development. Journal of Economic Literature, 49 (4), 1076-1151.
[Optional] 周黎安，中国地方官员的晋升锦标赛模式研究，《经济研究》2007 年第
7 期。

Topic 8 (Nov. 15)

Informal Institutions: Property Rights
Reading:
 Qiao, S. (2015). Small Property, Big Market: A Focal Point Explanation. American
Journal of Comparative Law, 63(1), 197-238.

Topic 9 (Nov. 22)

Informal Institutions: Finance
Reading:
Allen, F., Qian J. & Qian, M. (2005). Law, Finance, and Economic Growth in China.
Journal of Financial Economics, 77, 57-116.

Topic 10 (Nov. 29)

China’s Turn Toward/Against Law?
Reading:
Minzner, C. F. (2011). China's turn against law. The American Journal of Comparative
Law, 59(4), 935-984.
Zhang, T., & Ginsburg, T. (2019). China's turn toward law. Va. J. Int'l L., 59, 306. (Part I
& III)

13. Recommended Books and Reading

Naughton, Barry J. The Chinese economy: Transitions and growth. MIT press, 2006.
Williamson, John. “The Washington Consensus as Policy Prescription for Development.”
and “A Short History of Washington Consensus.”
Qian, Yingyi. 2003. "How Reform Worked in China?" in Dani Rodrik, editor, In Search
of Prosperity: Analytic Narratives on Economic Growth, Princeton University Press, 297-
333.
Lin, Justin and Yao, Yang. "Chinese Rural Industrialization in the Context of the East
Asian Miracle." Chapter 4 in Joseph Stiglitz and Shahid Yusuf editors, Rethinking the
East Asian Miracle, the World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2001.
兰小欢，《置身事内：中国政府与经济发展》，上海人民出版社 2021 年。

14. Recommended Website(s)

Human Development Reports
http://hdr.undp.org/en/
International Monetary Fund Database
http://www.imf.org/external/data.htm
(esp. its World Economic Outlook)
Transparency International Publications
http://www.transparency.org/publications/
(especially its Annual Report and Global Corruption Barometer)
World Bank Doing Business Reports
http://www.doingbusiness.org/
World Bank Governance Database
www.worldbank.org/wbi/governance
World Development Report
http://www.wdronline.worldbank.org/
World Investment Report:
http://www.unctad.org/Templates/Page.asp?intItemID=1485&lang=1
World Trade Report
http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/reser_e/wtr_e.htm
Economist. For example:
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/08/24/chinas-economy-is-
in-desperate-need-of-rescue