Pound’s Participation In The Legal System Of Modern China And Its Revelation

After the Anti-Japanese War, China would have a task of rebuilding, the legal reforms of Nanjing National Government also needed to be implemented. On June 28,1946, driven by the power of the political power of China and the United States and the introduction of legal scholars, Pound who was 75 years old came to China and acted as the legal and education consultant of Nanjing National Government with his wife.During his stay in China, Pound participated in various academic activities and put forward a lot of suggestions for legal reforms, which provided a most direct and concrete sociological jurisprudence theory and method of instruction for China’s legislation, judicial reform and legal education and other fields.On November 21,1948, influenced by political factors, Pound had to stop working in China and leave China. Although Pound’s ideas of legal reforms ultimately didn’t come to fruition, but the episode still has profound implications.If the political reform in the late Qing dynasty lies in passivity on some level, then the legal reforms of Nanjing National Government at the end of Anti-Japanese war is a kind of self-determining choice. Although the legal reforms of Nanjing National Government is likely to emphasize short-term profits rather than long-term effect, in the meanwhile the political unrest and social reality impeded all legal reform efforts. Despite all this, the events of Pound’s coming to China strengthened the communication of law cultures between China and the western world, inspired the Chinese legal scholars consciously thinking of the direction and way of the legal development. The Chinese legal scholars begin to cease copying the western model, base on the legal tradition and reality, make reference of the elite of western laws as well as abandon the narrow-minded viewpoints, then pursue the road of the legal modernization of China with a kind of autonomous mind and open spirit.