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The cultural foundations of Chinese policy-making are a troublesome set of contradictions that many Sinologists regularly refer to but rarely grasp. This shaky bedrock often gives rise to analyses weakened by discrepancies that include passing references to the influence of both "harmonious" Confucianism and violent, realist Legalism. Peter Kien-hong Yu presents an analytical framework which attempts to address this challenge and, in turn, accurately and reliably "decode" and "decipher" Chinese political behaviour and all its contradictions. Yu's approach presupposes that dialectical, or dualistic, thinking, which he describes as a tense struggle between opposing ideas and the subsequent creation of an operational concept that falls between the two extremes – the zhongdao (middle road) – is prevalent among contemporary Chinese and can be effectively modelled. Yu defends this presumption by spinning a lengthy, meandering yarn of anecdotes, and is confident enough of his scholarship to make the bumptious declaration that "Sinology and Bicoastal Chinese Studies are dead; long live the Dialectical Study of (Communist) China!"

AbstractIn recent years U.S. legal norms and practices reconfigured important elements of how law is thought of and practiced in both common and civil law countries around the world. With specific focus on the spread of American procedural practices (class action and pretrial discovery), this article applies a transactional view of law that emphasizes the private practice of law and nonstate actors. Such an approach highlights important aspects of world politics overlooked by traditional analyses of international legalization, conventionally understood as the direct spread of law by and among states. We find that the movement of law is a dynamic process involving diffusion, translation, and the repeated transnational exchanges of legal actors. Through our examination of this process, we offer insights into how aspects of American law moved into unlikely jurisdictions to reshape legal theory, pedagogy, procedure, and the organizing structure of the legal profession.