W. Allyn Rickett

Voluntary Surrender and Confession in Chinese Law: The Problem of Continuity

A unique feature of traditional Chinese law was the provision by statute that an offender who voluntarily surrendered and confessed before discovery and who made full restitution was entitled to remsision of punishment. Offenders who physically harmed their victims or offended against die state itself by commiting treason or escaping across borders were not entitled to remission, but could receive a reduction of punishment. Under the Republic this provision, known as tzu-shou , was continued in name but materially changed in substance under the influence of Western law as introduced through Japan. In general, the rewards for voluntary surrender and confession were reduced to mere reduction of punishment, but the scope was broadened to include crimes such as homicide, for which restitution was impossible. When the Chinese Communists first began developing a legal system in the 1930s, they too adopted tzu-shou . However, under them it became primarily an instrument of political control and social and ideological reform. It has remained an important aspect of Communist law even to the present though its application has ceased to have any strict legal significance.

G. WILLIAM SKINNER, ed. The City in Late Imperial China. Pp. xvii, 820. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1977.

Although for the past 3000 years many of the major cities of the world have been located in China, it is only recently that scholars have begun serious study of the institutional framework and ecology of Chinese cities. There is no lack of descriptive material concerning the physical makeup of these cities or documentary evidence concerning their institutions, but Chinese political and intellectual elites, wedded to an agrarian ideal,

35.00:

JOHN K. FAIRBANK (Ed.). The Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Relations. Pp. xii, 416. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968.

JOHN K. FAIRBANK (Ed.). The Chinese World Order: Traditional China's Foreign Relations. Pp. xii, 416. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968.

10.00. This book represents a collection of twelve studies on imperial China’s relations with non-Chinese states, chiefly during the Ch’ing dynasty (1644-1912). The first article, by Lien-sheng Yang, &dquo;Historical Notes on the Chinese World Order,&dquo; deals with traditional Chinese attitudes toward outsiders. The second is by Wang Gung-wu, who treats &dquo;Early Ming Relations with Southeast Asia.&dquo; It is particularly valuable as a survey of evidence concerning pre-Ch’ing tribute relations and the development of China’s principle assumption in dealing with other states, that is, the material and moral superiority of the Chinese. In the third study, Mark Mancall provides a wide-ranging survey of &dquo;The Ch’ing Tribute System,&dquo; and this is followed by a series of special studies on the &dquo;SinoKorean Tributary Relations in the Ch’ing Period,&dquo; by Hae-jong Chun; &dquo;The Ryukyu (Liu-ch’iu) Islands as a Fief of Satsuma,&dquo; by Robert K. Sakai; the Chinese &dquo;Investiture of Liu-ch’iu Kings in the Ch’ing Period,&dquo; by Ta-tuan Ch’en; &dquo;Chinese Intervention versus Tribute in Sino-Vietnamese Relations, 1788-1790,&dquo; by Truong Buu Lam; &dquo;China’s Relations with Inner Asia: The Hsiung-nu, Tibet,&dquo; by Chusei Suzuki; &dquo;The Origins of the Manchu’s Mongolian Policy,&dquo; by David M. Farquhar; and &dquo;China and Central Asia, 1368-1884,&dquo; by Joseph F. Fletcher. There are two studies dealing mainly with Sino-Western relations: &dquo;Ch’ing Relations with the Dutch, 1662-1690,&dquo; by John E. Wills, Jr., and &dquo;The Early Treaty System in the Chinese World Order,&dquo; by John K. Fairbank. Fairbank also contributes a valuable introduction to the book, entitled &dquo;A Preliminary Framework.&dquo; The final study, by Benjamin I. Schwartz, attempts to sum up &dquo;The Chinese Perception of World Order, Past and Present.&dquo; Mr. Schwartz believes that there is a persistent Chinese perception of world order, based on the notion of universal kingship, linked to a widely shared sense of participation in a high culture involving a peculiarly Confucian mystique of rule by virtue and an absolutization of the Con-

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Systems. Pp. xi, 98. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967.

HOWARD L. BOORMAN (Ed.), in association with Richard C. Boorman. Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, Vol. I: Ai-Ch'ü. Pp. xv, 483. New York: Columbia University Press, 1967.

4.95. One of the key sections in Modern Political Systems: Asia edited by Robert E. Ward and Roy C. Macridis was Lucian W. Pye’s study of Southeast Asia. Much of the material by the author is found in the volume here under review. By its printing as a single book entitled Soutlteast Asia’s Political Systems, the publishers have appealed to the person who wants to focus his attention on the area without the

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The Kuan-tzu is a collection of essays dating roughly from the fourth to the second century B.C. They were edited in their present form by Liu Hsiang about 26 B.C. This essay is composed of a seasonal calendar coupled with a treatise on military strategy. The arrangement of the text indicates it once formed the content of an early calendar chart.