A Study On The Legal Thoughts And Practice Of The Early Ministers To Foreign Countries Of Late Qing Dynasty

The early ministers to foreign countries of late Qing Dynasty are a batch of scholar-bureaucrats who walked up to world earlier in modern China and also are the torchbearers of the legal reform of late Qing Dynasty. During the gestation of it, in order to abolish the consular jurisdiction, they proposed the thoughtfulness of legal innovation. At the same time, they introduced the western laws into China and put forward a series of suggestions. The present dissertation attempts a study on the legal thoughts and practice of the early missions to foreign countries of late Qing Dynasty, and gives them a preparatory evaluation.At the first place, the thesis introduces the formation of the early ministers to foreign countries, meanwhile, points out that they were the torchbearers of legal reform in the late Qing Dynasty. Secondly, it discusses the legal thoughts and practice of early ministers to foreign countries in the late Qing Dynasty, which is the pivots of the whole study. Their legal thoughts include two parts: one is to insist that the consular jurisdiction should be abolished, the other is to bring forward the thoughtfulness of reforming traditional laws which was to integrate the western laws into the traditional laws. These ideas with didacticism make them to be the torchbearers of legal reform in the late Qing Dynasty. When they were sent to foreign countries on diplomatic mission, they saw about the western laws such as police system, prison system, lawyer system and jury system and introduced them into China. In addition, they put forward a lot of suggestions according to the changes of the situation bravely. Their practice gave great illumination to Legal Reform of late Qing Dynasty. Lastly, the author analyses the advantage and disadvantage of the legal thoughts and practice of early ministers to foreign countries, and affirmes their contributions to the legal reform of late Qing Dynasty.