ABSTRACT
Although the adoption of market reforms has been a key factor leading to China’s recent economic growth, China continues to be governed by a communist party and has a socialist-influenced legal system. Vietnam, starting later, also with a socialist-influenced legal system, has followed a similar reform path, and other countries too are now looking towards China and Vietnam as models for development. This book provides a comprehensive, comparative assessment of legal developments in China and Vietnam, examining similarities and differences, and raising important questions such as: Is there a distinctive Chinese model, and/or a more general East Asian Model? If so, can it be flexibly applied to social and economic conditions in different countries? If it cannot be applied to a culturally and politically similar country like Vietnam, is the model transportable elsewhere in the world? Combining ‘micro’ or interpretive methods with ‘macro’ or structural traditions, the book provides a nuanced account of legal reforms in China and Vietnam, highlighting the factors likely to promote, change or resist the spread of the Chinese model.
Part I Introduction. Chapter 1 Introduction: China and Vietnam Compared Albert Chen and John Gillespie. Chapter 2 Sequencing Chinese Legal Development Professor Randall Peerenboom. Part II Debating legal development in China and Vietnam. Chapter 3 Legal Thought and Legal Development in the People’s Republic of China Albert Chen. Chapter 4 The Juridification of State Regulation in Vietnam John Gillespie. Part III Developing an Administrative Law System. Introduction: Michael Dowdle. Chapter 5 Towards Regulatory Neutrality in a Party-State? A Review of Administrative Law Reforms in China Assistant Dr Zheng Ge. Chapter 6 Achievements and challenges in developing an administrative law system in contemporary Vietnam Vu Doan Ket and Matthieu Salomon. Part III Public access to justice. Introduction: Nicholas Booth. Chapter 7 Access to Justice in China: Potentials, Limits and Alternatives Fu Hualing. Chapter 8 Publication and Public Access: the largely inaccessible Vietnamese court decision Pip Nicholson. Part IV Commercial regulatory reforms. Introduction: Donald Clarke. Chapter 9 Commercial Regulatory Reform in China during Transition: An Alternative Path to the Regulatory State Assistant Dr Leng Jing. Chapter 10 Vietnam: The development of commercial regulation in Vietnam Melanie Beresford. Part V The evolving role of legal education Introduction: Jerry Cohen. Chapter 11 China’s Lawyers and their Training: Enduring Influences and Disconnects Alison Conner. Chapter 12 Legal Education in Vietnam: To Change or Not to Change? Bui Bich Thi Lien. Part VII Legal diffusion: the role of non-state actors in shaping the regulatory environment. Introduction: Michael Dowdle. Chapter 13 China: Business Lobbying in China in Comparative Perspective Scott Kennedy. Chapter 14 By-passing the state: Non-state regulation in Vietnam Nguyen Hung Quang. Conclusion: Reflections on legal development in China and Vietnam Albert Chen and John Gillespie.
