Webinar Synopsis: The Chinese Dream and Law situates the Chinese Dream in the modern utopianism discourse since the Late Qing, following Kang Youwei and Mao Zedong. As a tool to promote the Chinese Dream, the legal reforms during the period depart from the “thin constitutionalism” of the first three decades of the post-Mao era and resemble aspects of Legalism. Although the current regime has made some progress in protecting people’s socioeconomic rights through law, it has retreated on upholding judicial independence to protect people’s civil and political rights, especially those vis-à-vis the state. The first three decades since post-Mao reform are an aberration that deviates from the normal trajectory of modern Chinese political development. The decade-long efforts by the current regime have slowed the growing official corruption and have slightly narrowed the growing income gap, although economic growth was cut in half. The Chinese style of utopianism could mean a “better place” – as in the country’s ancient past, it could also become a “no place” in the modern diverse world because tis human hope that has a universal claim is often built on authoritarian means.

Author: Shiping Hua

Shiping Hua is Calvin & Helen Distinguished Chair in Asian Studies, Director of Asian Studies Program, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Louisville in the United States. He has published 4 solo-authored books and 12 edited books in English. He is the chief editor of a few book series, including “Routledge Studies in Comparative Asian Politics” and “Asia in the New Millennium” with University Press of Kentucky.

Discussant: Jeffrey E. Thomas

Jeffrey E. Thomas , Associate Dean for International Programs & Professor of Law, University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Law. He is the Daniel L. Brenner Faculty Scholar, Professor of Law and Associate Dean at UMKC School of Law. He earned his BA from Loyola Marymount University and his JD from the University of California – Berkeley. His research focuses on law and culture, the rule of law, and insurance law. With his co-author Yan Dong he recently published the Empirical Study of the Role of Chinese Guiding Case System in Chinese Law in the Hong Kong Law Journal.

Discussant: Qiang Fang

Qiang Fang, professor of East Asian history at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He was President of Association of Chinese Professors of Social Sciences (2021-2024) and Chinese Historians in the United States (2017-2019). He is the editor of American Review of China Studies and “China from Revolution to Reform.” He has authored and coauthored many books including, among others, Who is Studying China: A Guideline of Overseas China Centers (2024), China Under Xi Jinping: A New Assessment (2024), and etc.

Moderator: Le Lin

Le Lin is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His research centers on education, organizations, economic sociology, transnational sociology and Chinese society. His monograph, The Fruits of Opportunism: Noncompliance and the Evolution of China’s Supplemental Education Industry, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2022. This book won the Honorable Mention of the Best Book Award on Asia/Transnational by the American Sociological Association in 2023.