Lin Zexu's Legal Thought Research

As an illustrious law ideologist,a famous statesman and an outstanding national hero,Lin Zexu was the first person who perceived “the need of a better knowledge of foreigners” in modern Chinese history.When the rule of the late Qing Dynasty was on the verge of collapse and the Chinese nation was in danger of extinction,he looked at the Western world from a different perspective and began to ponder an effective strategy to save the nation and its people by paying close attention to imperial China's reality while studing from the West.Although Lin represented the feudal landlord class,it doesn't bother us to see him as a reform advocator and a law ideologist.He made great contributions to the ideas of administrative law,military law,economic law and international law.In addition,having integrated the traditional Chinese thinking with that of west,he made rich the laws and perfected the legal system.Lin Zexu applied law theories from other powerful countries to Chinese diplomatic practice,which wins himself a groundbreaking victory in maintaining the sovereignty of the state and introducting the modern public law of diplomacy to Imperial China.Lin Zexu's law thinking indeed had a huge impact on the feudal society.It encouraged Chinese people to fight against the aggression of Western colonialists while taking advantage of their thought and technologies.Although his law thinking was to the benefit of the feudal landlord class while aiming at maintaining the rule of the feudal society and learning from the West to "control the barbarians",it did make an indelible and remarkable contribution to the modernization of China,erecting a significant landmark in modern history and Chinese diplomatic history.