Law, Contracts, and Economic Modernization: Lessons from the Recent Chinese Rural Reforms
![handle is hein.journals/stanit23 and id is 331 raw text is: Law, Contracts, and Economic
Modernization: Lessons from
the Recent Chinese Rural
Reforms*
by DAVID ZWEIG,t KATHY HARTFORD,t
JAMES FEINERMAN,** and DENGJIANXUtt
The reintroduction of household farming in the People's Re-
public of China (P.R.C.)' and the transition there to a more com-
mercialized rural economy2 have loosened the bonds of the
* David Zweig would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by a
research grant from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
and the assistance of the Economics Department and Foreign Affairs Office of Nanjing
University which helped arrange the research trip to Jiangpu County. Thanks, too, to
Connie Monaco for her assistance in preparing the manuscript.
t David Zweig is an Assistant Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher
School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is also an Associate-in-Research at
the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University.
$ Kathy Hartford is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science,
University of Massachusetts at Boston.
** James Feinerman is an Associate Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law
Center.
tt Deng Jianxu is a Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, Shenzhen University in
Shenzhen, Guangdong, People's Republic of China. Until 1984, he was Judge, Eco-
nomic Chamber, Suzhou District Court, Suzhou, Jiangsu, People's Republic of China.
From September 1984 to December 1985, he was a Visiting Researcher, East Asian
Legal Studies Program, Harvard Law School under the auspices of an Asian Scholar-in-
Residence Grant from the Council on International Exchange of Scholars (Fulbright
Program).
1 See Crook, The Baogan Daohu Incentive System: Translation and Analysis of a Model
Contract, 102 CHINA Q. 291 (1985); see also Rural Economic Reform: Questions and Answers,
CHINA RECONSTRUCTS, June 1984, at 14 (statements of Du Runsheng, Director, Rural
Policy Research Center, Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Chinese Commu-
nist Party, and Director, Research Center for China's Rural Development); cf. R. PFEF-
FER, UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS CONTRACTS IN CHINA, 1949-1963 at 52, 57-58 (1973)
(describing small-scale production on private plots for rural markets).
2 Circular on Rural Work During 1984, art. 2 (1984) (issued on Jan. 1, 1984 by
Central Committee, Chinese Communist Party), Renmin Ribao [People's Daily], June
12, 1984, translated in 101 CHINA Q. 132, 132 (1985); De Wulf, Economic Reform in China,
FIN. & DEv., Mar. 1985, at 8.
319](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/stanit23&div=22&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Law, Contracts, and Economic Modernization: Lessons from the Recent Chinese Rural Reforms
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