China and LPE – LPE Project

Analyzing China: The Role of Empathy in Comparative Law

James Brandt — Thu, 04 May 2023 11:00:00 +0000

China has long been understood (and misunderstood) through the presuppositions and biases of the West. From canonical political philosophers, who have debated whether China represents an “oriental despotism,” to contemporary scholars who question the very existence of law in China, the study of the country is rife with analytical blind spots. But how can American legal scholars avoid such a fate? One underrated tactic is to adopt an empathetic approach, an openness to different possibilities in legal and non-legal ordering that does not take the necessity of formal Western legal institutions as a given. While an empathetic orientation does not preclude critique, it is a check against orientalist perspectives that see different laws, institutions, and cultures as self-evidently inferior.

Civil Procedure in U.S.-China Relations

James Brandt — Wed, 03 May 2023 11:00:00 +0000

In comparison with American courts, which increasingly adjudicate a narrow set of transnational cases, Chinese courts rarely forfeit authority over transnational cases. This development is reshaping the landscape of transnational litigation, as China’s appetite for taking on transnational cases calls attention to the advantages of exercising jurisdiction over a case — advantages that can dictate the outcome of cases in favorable ways, and which play an underappreciated role in the configuration of the international legal order.

Toward a Postmetaphysical Approach to the Study of Chinese Law

James Brandt — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 11:00:00 +0000

This post is part of a symposium on China and the Political Economy of the International Legal Order. *** In a world where differences between the United States and China are increasingly amplified and weaponized, how can legal scholars study China fairly, insightfully, and constructively? To explore this question, I contrast two approaches to studying Chinese law: what I call the “metaphysical...

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Labor Rights and the U.S.-China Relationship: From Neoliberal Consensus to Imperial Rivalry

James Brandt — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 11:00:00 +0000

From the 1990s until the Trump presidency, political and economic elites on both sides of the Pacific held a largely uncomplicated enthusiasm for the re-centering of global supply chains within the borders of the People’s Republic of China. More recently, however, the U.S. federal government has resorted to a range of interventions to try to derail China’s ascendance, including, improbably, a newfound commitment to labor rights in China. By examining this trajectory, we can see why efforts to address labor exploitation will not succeed unless they transcend the narrow political vision engendered by the increasingly hostile U.S.-China rivalry.

Marxism and China’s Effort to Build “Foreign-Related Rule of Law”

James Brandt — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 11:00:00 +0000

Given its history, China is acutely aware of the hypocrisy of powerful countries speaking in the language of international law. Over the past two years, however, the so-called “foreign-related rule of law” (涉外法治) has gained enormous influence in Chinese official and academic discourse. While this turn is motivated, in part, by the China-U.S. rivalry, to fully understand the importance of this development, we must begin with a more basic question: why does a geopolitical power need law in the first place? And what kind of LPE-inspired approach is best suited to address this question?

On the Place of Racial Capitalism in China’s Northwestern Frontier

James Brandt — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 11:00:00 +0000

Though its contemporary theorization emerged from Cedric Robinson and other scholars of the Black Radical Tradition, racial capitalism is neither an idea somehow restricted to the U.S. or Europe, nor an idea that can be provincialized solely within the processes and structures of Western colonial expropriation and exploitation. Rather, this approach can help us understand the immense expansion of securitization and forced assimilation in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, not as an aberration, but as the logical extension of Han settler capitalist development strategies since at least the early 1990s.

China and the Political Economy of the International Legal Order

James Brandt — Wed, 19 Apr 2023 11:00:00 +0000

This post kicks off a symposium on China and the Political Economy of the International Legal Order. *** Interpretations of China suffuse nearly every global debate, a reflection of the country’s ever-growing geopolitical and economic significance. Yet for those seeking those to understand China from a critical left perspective, the often-contradictory nature of these interpretations expresses...

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