The Rule of Law in Modern China
CCCH9041
Instructions for the Writing of the Essay
The essay you write for this course will count as 50% of the assessment in this course.
The essay (and the Research Note mentioned below) should be submitted via Moodle before 12 noon on Tuesday 6 May 2025. More detailed technical instructions on how to submit your essay via Moodle will be provided later on this Moodle page.
The maximum word limit for the essay is 2,000 words -- not counting words in footnotes and bibliography (bibliography or list of references is only necessary if you use the “in-text citations” of the APA style. mentioned below). You must submit together with the essay a “Research Note” (on the methodology of your research) consisting of not more than 1,000 words. The Research Note should set out how your research for the essay was conducted (e.g. what means were used for the research) and identify a few items of materials (e.g. journal articles or books) that you have found most useful and that you have relied on heavily in writing the essay and have cited in your essay.
Please use the Cover Page on the Moodle page as the first page of your essay and your Research Note. Please provide on the cover page your UID number, your tutorial group number, and the topic number of your essay (if chosen from the topics set out below). Please type your essay and your Research Note using font size 14 and double spacing. Before you submit your essay and Research Note by uploading them onto Moodle, please give your document a file name in the following format:
[2]3035123456[essay]
[2]3035123456[ResearchNote]
(3035123456 being the student no. and 2 being the tutorial group no. in the above example)
The essay will be graded in accordance with the Grading Criteria (Grade Descriptor) posted on the Moodle page of this course.
The essay is a research paper written on the basis of the research you do in preparing to write the essay. The source materials you use in writing the essay should be acknowledged either in footnotes or “in-text citations” in APA style. You are free to choose whether to use footnotes or in-text citations. Footnotes or “in-text citations” are normally used for various purposes, such as giving the source of a quotation or a paraphrased passage, acknowledging that a point or idea mentioned in your essay comes from the writings of another author, providing more information about a point you are making in your essay, etc. Where Chinese sources are cited, the Chinese characters of the author and title of the material should be provided.
The style. and format of citations of materials in “in-text citations” (APA style) or footnotes should follow respectively (a) the “APA” style. (see below) or (b) the style. and format used in Reading 10 (Albert Chen, “China’s Long March Towards Rule of Law or China’s Turn against Law?” (2016) 4 Chinese Journal of Comparative Law 1-35, available on ReadingList@HKUL on the right-hand side of the Moodle page of this course). When you study the style. and format of citations in this article, please note that “ibid.” refers to the work cited in the immediately preceding footnote; a reference to “(n 2)” means the work previously cited in footnote 2 of the article; citation of webpages should follow the format at footnotes 122-124 of the article; when Chinese sources are cited, the Chinese characters of the author and title of the material should be provided, as in footnote 136 of the article.
If you would like to follow the “APA” (American Psychological Association) style, please consult the following webpages:
http://www.bibme.org/citation-guide/apa/
http://www.easybib.com/guides/citation-guides/apa-format/
Your essay should draw on a wide range of source materials read by you, and should not rely only on a small number of sources. Guidelines on how to do a research project have been provided at the lecture on 26 February 2025 (the PowerPoint document and the voice recording for the lecture are available on Moodle). You may also refer to the webpage on “The Writer’s Handbook: Writing a Research Paper” (available on Moodle).
The essay must be written by you on the basis of your own reading of relevant publications (course materials in this course, books, journal articles, published reports, reliable Internet sources, etc.) or other relevant source materials (identified by yourself in the course of your research) as listed in the footnotes or “in-text citations” of your essay; plagiarism of others’ writings or the use of generative AI to write this essay is strictly prohibited, and the declaration on the Cover Page that you are required to sign states that you have not done so.
The essay you submit will be automatically subject to a “Turnitin” check on plagiarism and on the use of AI in writing the essay. Please note that using AI to write the essay or plagiarism of any printed, online or other materials is a serious academic offence and will be penalized by reduction of marks or a “Fail” grade, and referred to the University’s Disciplinary Committee for investigation and punishment. Plagiarism includes not only copying (or paraphrasing) from published works (including Internet publications) without proper acknowledgment of the source (including any Internet webpage) in a footnote or in-text citation, but also copying from other students’ or other people’s work (even if it has not been published), or using your own work submitted for assessment in another course, academic programme or academic institution. If you quote directly from another person’s work, you must put the quotation in quotation marks (“ ”) and acknowledge the source. If you paraphrase a point in another person’s work, no quotation marks need to be used but the source must be acknowledged.
Essay Topics
Please choose one of the following topics as the topic of your essay. Your essay may focus on a “sub-topic” (chosen by yourself) within one of the topics mentioned below. If you would like to write an essay on any other topic covered by this course as your essay for assessment in this course, you may make a written application to the tutor of your tutorial group. The application should state precisely the topic of your proposed essay. The tutor may decide whether to approve your application or not. If it is not approved, you should choose one of the following topics as the topic of your essay.
Topic 1: Confucianism and Legalism: Compare and contrast the views of the Confucians and Legalists in ancient China, and discuss whether they are still relevant to China today.
Topic 2: Late Qing Legal Reforms: To what extent did the legal reformers in late Qing contribute to the modernisation of the Chinese legal system?
Topic 3: Two Periods of PRC Legal History: Compare and contrast the thinking about and the practice relating to law and Rule of Law in the People’s Republic of China before the Cultural Revolution in 1966 and after the era of “reform. and opening” began in 1978.
Topic 4: Lessons from the Cultural Revolution: Summarize the major lessons for the Rule of Law in the People’s Republic of China that can be drawn from the lawlessness in the Cultural Revolution era (1966-1976). Then discuss which part of such lessons have been well learnt in the post-1978 constitutional and legal reforms, and which part may need to be better addressed.
Topic 5: Rule of Law in Mainland China: Select some aspects of the law, the constitution or the Rule of Law in mainland China, and discuss the progress (if any) made in these aspects in recent decades in mainland China, and the weaknesses or deficiencies (if any) in these aspects in mainland China today.
Topic 6: Rule of Law in Taiwan: Select some aspects of the law, the constitution or the Rule of Law in Taiwan, and discuss the progress (if any) made in these aspects since the 1950s in Taiwan, and the weaknesses or deficiencies (if any) in these aspects in Taiwan today.
Topic 7: Comparing the Judiciary in Mainland China and Taiwan: Compare and contrast the roles of the courts in post-1987 Taiwan and post-1982 Mainland China. Also discuss the implications of judicial independence for the development of the Rule of Law in these two jurisdictions respectively.
Topic 8: Comparing the Judiciary in Mainland China and Hong Kong: Compare and contrast the roles of the courts in post-1997 Hong Kong and Mainland China. Also discuss the implications of judicial independence for the development of the Rule of Law in these two jurisdictions respectively.
Topic 9: Comparative Study of Human Rights in Hong Kong and Taiwan: Compare the protection of human rights in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and discuss the constitutional, legal, and/or social factors that may have affected such protection in these two jurisdictions.
Topic 10: Rule of Law, Judicial Independence, Human Rights and the Case of China: What, if any, is the relationship between the Rule of Law, judicial independence and human rights? How can these concepts be applied to study the legal system of the People’s Republic of China today?
Topic 11: Rule of Law, Judicial Independence, Human Rights and the Case of Hong Kong: What, if any, is the relationship between the Rule of Law, judicial independence and human rights? How can these concepts be applied to study the legal system of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region today?
Topic 12: Human Rights and Chinese Values: Some people believe that “human rights” is a Western concept that is not suitable for China today, because Chinese culture, values and social conditions are different from those of the West. Do you agree with this view?