'The wise ruler disciplines his officials, not his people:' The treatment of official malfeasance in early Chinese law

The importance of official malfeasance in traditional Chinese law is shown by the surprisingly large quantity of rules concerning it and the complexity and sophistication of these rules. This emphasis on official malfeasance and its codification into various forms of criminal and administrative laws indicate one of the chief characteristics of the traditional Chinese legal system: the practice of regulating officials rather than the people. This practice has rarely been acknowledged or studied, although it is an essential aspect of the Chinese legal tradition and crucial for gaining insight into it.; This study attempts to fill the lacuna by examining the origin and major stages of development of the official malfeasance in early Chinese law, from earliest times to the T'ang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907). The genesis of the law on the treatment of official malfeasance is traced in as much detail as sources will allow, but the focus is placed on an extensive exploration of the treatment of official malfeasance as well as of official crimes other than malfeasance under Ch'in State law (?-221 B.C.) as revealed in the Yun-meng texts and under the T'ang law as revealed in its Code of A.D. 653.; This study provides a new perspective on traditional Chinese criminal law by using fundamental legal concepts in modern criminology not as the standard but rather as the format for systematic research. It thus explains the law by dissecting it into its three major components: crimes normally included in the criminal code, crimes concerning family relationships, and crimes concerning bureaucracy. Official malfeasance, the main system of negative sanctions for bureaucratic control, and the crimes concerning family ethics developed not only in different directions but also under different guiding principles. The former ultimately received greater emphasis than the latter and became the central feature of the law in its evolution. Traditional Chinese law thus served primarily as a tool for the internal organization and maintenance of the state bureaucracy.