China’s legal approach to national security threats, and emergency situations in general, is more complex and subtle and thus richer in implications for comparative law and for understanding transnational legal influence. … Given China’s sheer scale and international importance, its legal reaction to any major issue is a substantial part of the worldwide response. China’s discussion, adoption, and use of legal means to address identified dangers – especially terrorism – have invoked concerns familiar from post-9/11 developments elsewhere and have engaged international legal norms, including ones that emerged in the wake of 9/11 and others that predated and survived it. The Chinese example thus does, or at least should, matter.
Security First? Patterns and Lessons from China’s Use of Law To Address National Security Threats
By Jacques deLisle
Jacques deLisle’s research and teaching focus on contemporary Chinese law and politics, including: legal reform and its relationship to economic reform and political change in China, the international status of Taiwan and cross-Strait relations, China’s engagement with the international order, legal and political issues in Hong Kong’s reversion to Chinese rule and post-reversion Hong Kong, and aspects of U.S.-China relations. His writings on these subjects appear in a variety of fora, including internationalrelations journals, edited volumes of multidisciplinary scholarship, and Asian studies journals, as well as law reviews. DeLisle is director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Penn and director of the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He has served frequently as an expert witness on issues of P.R.C. law and government policies and is a consultant, lecturer and advisor to legal reform, development and education programs, primarily in China.
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