Learning Through Teaching: Reflections on the Development of Social Justice in China Through Public Interest Legal Work

• Author: Mark Aronchick
• Pages: 264-267

264 TSINGHUA CHINA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 8:263

OPINION

LEARNING THROUGH TEACHING: REFLECTIONS ON THE

DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL JUSTICE IN CHINA THROUGH PUBLIC

INTEREST LEGAL WORK

Mark Aronchick

In November and December 2015, I had a fascinating and

challenging opportunity to teach American Constitutional Law and

Torts to fifty accomplished, curious, and insightful students in an

LLM program offered by Temple University Law School on

American law at Tsinghua Law School. If these students are

representative of the new generations entering the legal profession

in China, the Chinese people will be well served and will have

much to admire.

The legal profession, like so many institutions in China, is in a

transformational stage. There has been much discussion in China

of “the rule of law,” but exactly what that means and how it will

operate in China remains to be seen. I have no crystal ball to predict

the future, but I have some ideas about how that future might

become a Chinese success story.

As the economy grows, and as a strong middle class begins to

emerge, China inevitably will face questions reminiscent of those

Americans asked after our economic success after World War II.

With a degree of affluence comes a next phase – demands from the

historically marginalized to be included in the success story; a

renewed definition of social justice; a search for meaning beyond

basic economic stability.

China is at the cusp of this second phase. I saw, in different

ways and in different degrees, a search for meaning among my

students. So many wanted to be sure they were in a profession that

would provide not only a good standard of living but also would

enable them to help people with their problems, both large and

small. My students – and so many others I met – are asking the

basic question of just what a system based on the rule of law should

mean in a just society.

That search for meaning is playing out across Chinese society

in so many ways, and that is a natural consequence of a society that

is increasing the standard of living for its citizens and is trying to

demonstrate to itself and the world that it has much to offer toward

human progress in so many areas. People want to contribute, they

want to help, and they want to make things better. Lawyers are no

different.

In economically powerful countries, society looks to its legal

system to work out rules of conduct and achieve social justice. If

the legal system can deliver on that promise, social stability - a

“buy in” into the system – is strengthened. The seeds of such a

legal system are present in Beijing. They have been planted by