Twenty years ago, few would have predicted that China's legal system would have developed to the degree that it has. Given the remarkable progress, sceptics who deny any fundamental change in the basic nature of the system seem unduly pessimistic or cynical.
By contrast, liberals who think China is on the way to establishing a liberal legal system of the kind found in Western democracies seem at once overly optimistic and not fully cognisant of differences in fundamental values that have led many Asian countries to resist the influence of liberalism in favour of their own brand of 'Asian values'.
There may be a middle ground. While the footprint of the system's instrumental rule-by-law heritage remains visible, there is considerable evidence of a shift towards a system with the basic elements of a thin rule of law.
Yet there is little evidence of a shift towards a rule of law understood to entail democracy and a liberal version of human rights that gives priority to civil and political rights.
Accordingly, we need to take seriously alternative conceptions to a liberal democratic rule of law.
China is more likely to adopt a statist socialist, neo-authoritarian and communitarian version of rule of law than it is to adopt a liberal democratic one.
