Author
Assoc Prof Samuli Seppänen
Organisation/Institution
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)
Country
HONG KONG (SAR OF CHINA)
Panel
Constitutional and Admin Law
Title
Chinese Legal Ideology versus Global Illiberalism
Abstract
Is Chinese legal ideology part of the global illiberal surge that has challenged liberal constitutionalism and rule of law theories from Russia and Hungary to Turkey and the United States? This paper compares China’s domestic and foreign-facing legal ideology to contemporary illiberal political speech through the methods of rhetorical theory. It identifies rhetorical strategies in prominent examples of Chinese legal ideology and compares them to notable descriptions of contemporary illiberal political speech. Recent political science describes the latest wave of illiberal political speech as decentralized, spontaneous, horizontal (rather than top-down), globally ambitious, cynical (or nihilistic) and relativist. Chinese legal ideology reflects some of these qualities: it is globally ambitious and employs relativist tropes in its rejection of Western universalism. Nevertheless, this paper argues that the mode of production and rhetorical strategies of Chinese legal ideology set it apart from contemporary illiberal political speech. Chinese legal ideology is produced in a top-down process that is not spontaneous but centrally planned. Moreover, Chinese legal ideology does not draw on the same rhetorical strategies of cynicism and nihilism as contemporary illiberal speech. The paper concludes by discussing the consequences of these differences for the global relevance of Chinese legal ideology. Chinese legal ideology is arguably more globally ambitious than contemporary illiberal political speech. It aims to introduce new first principles for global legal discourse, such as the Community of Common Destiny, instead of merely subverting existing liberal principles. At the same time, the top-down nature of Chinese ideological speech has made it largely irrelevant for contemporary illiberal political movements outside China.
Biography
Samuli Seppänen is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He holds an S.J.D. degree from Harvard University and an undergraduate law degree from the University of Helsinki. At Harvard, he served as a Teaching Fellow at the Kennedy School of Governance and as a coordinator of the Visiting Scholars’ and Researchers’ Colloquium at Harvard Law School. Before his doctoral studies at Harvard, he worked as a junior professional officer with the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for South East Asia in New Delhi, India. Samuli’s research focuses on legal and political thought in China and developmental aspects of international law.
