THIRTY YEARS AGO, China was a legal shambles. The "antirightist" campaign of 1957-58 and the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76 had demolished the system that the People's Republic of China had initially imported from the Soviet Union. The country had virtually no contemporary legislation. The pro-curacy or public-prosecution offices and the courts had been decimated, and the Ministry of Justice abolished. The modest legal profession launched in the mid-1950s had not functioned for two decades. Legal education was only beginning to resume after a long hiatus. Experts were few and out of date. Bookstores had no law section.
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