China moves toward the rule of law

For more than a generation, the People' Republic of China has, essentially, been without a criminal code, a civil code, a comnercia1 code and the usually-expected rules of law. In 1979, new policies were adopted to re-institute the rule of law. For the same period, it has been a country where there were, essentially, no law yers. This article describes the new policies and examines in detail two of the new laws, the criminal code and the code of criminal procedure. The characteristics of each are described and analyzed against the background of legal history in China since 1949.