Rule of law: one term, two characters, many meanings
A millennia-old phrase is the centrepiece of the Communist Party's judicial reform push but how accurate is its official English translation?
President Xi Jinping called for it, the Communist Party endorsed it and the country's judicial system is to be governed by it but there is still no consensus on how it should be rendered in English.
At the end of the annual gathering of the party's elite last month, leaders backed Xi's push to promote fazhi - a concept officially translated as "rule of law". But others argue that the term is better translated as "rule by law" or "rule through law" to drive home the point that whatever the changes to the system, the law is not something unto itself - it's there to serve the party.
The term fazhi is comprises two characters - fa meaning "law" and zhi meaning "to rule" and "to govern" - and dates back to the second or third century BC.
University of Nevada political science professor Xiaoyu Pu said "rule of law" and "rule by law" both meant that law should govern a nation.
But while "rule of law" in the western sense stressed that political authority should be held in check by the law, the "rule by law" in the Chinese tradition underscored the use of law to rule society.
In the West, rule of law is also associated with democracy, government accountability and human rights, elements that have long been rejected by the Communist-ruled government.
Nicholas Calcina Howson, from the University of Michigan's Law School, said the party and the government had increasingly used other rhetorical forms in the last decade, such as yifa xingzheng (to administer by law) and fazhi zhengfu (to govern by law). It is also about what is called yifa zhiguo (rule by law).