East Asian Law-making in the Time of Covid-19: Through the Lens of Chinese Legalism

Abstract

The authors answer the question why law played a key role in shaping East Asian responses to Covid-19. The paper elucidates the collaborative state-society relationships in Taiwan through the lens of Chinese Legalism. They argue that the Legalist legacy of conceptualising law has played an important role in shaping East Asian styles of governance and policy implications for common good and that understanding Chinese Legalism allows for critical and differentiated analyses of state control as it is present in the current pandemic.

The political initiative of Taiwan’s education for sustainable development: Looking through the lens of Chinese legalism

“…In this article we seek to illustrate the implicit influence of Legalist thinking in the education policy-making process in Taiwan to understand the commonly perceived strong states and bureaucratic coordination in East Asian education systems. In fact, discussion about the influence of Chinese Legalism on East Asian governance can also be found in other fields (e.g., Bell, 2009;Huang and Hioe, 2020;Peng, 2000). Hahm and Paik (2003), for example, referred to this traditional frame of reference as Legalistic Confucianism and traced its origins back to Wang Anshi-a renowned philosopher and politician of Northern Song (960-1126).…”

“…Through the lens of Chinese Legalism, we were able to uncover the principles, assumptions, and norms underlying the governance structures and mechanisms in Taiwan's ESD policy-making process. Chinese Legalism arose as a political thought in ancient China and was used to, and in some ways continues to (Huang and Hioe, 2020), inform statecraft to ensure domestic stability (Pines, 2014). Before turning to Chinese Legalism and its philosophical foundation, we first introduce the study purpose and methods.…”