Limitations of Transitional Justice in the PRC: the Curious Absence of the inoffizielle Mitarbeiter
(2013) Justice and Accountability in Maoist China and After- Abstract
- My paper begins with some brief observations on the existing literature on the Chinese Communist Party’s post-Mao reversal of so-called unjust, wrong, and false cases. The paper then proceeds to examine a noteworthy difference between the PRC case and transitional justice in other states where “the transitional” entailed a further shift in power from an ancien regime to an entirely new order (viz. Eastern Europe after 1989): the complete absence from the Chinese public record of the inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (teqing in Chinese). Drawing on Chinese Public Security files, I argue that his/her absence from accounts of injustices and justice should not be interpreted as evidence of the teqing not actually having been present in Mao Zedong’s... (More)
- My paper begins with some brief observations on the existing literature on the Chinese Communist Party’s post-Mao reversal of so-called unjust, wrong, and false cases. The paper then proceeds to examine a noteworthy difference between the PRC case and transitional justice in other states where “the transitional” entailed a further shift in power from an ancien regime to an entirely new order (viz. Eastern Europe after 1989): the complete absence from the Chinese public record of the inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (teqing in Chinese). Drawing on Chinese Public Security files, I argue that his/her absence from accounts of injustices and justice should not be interpreted as evidence of the teqing not actually having been present in Mao Zedong’s socio-political reality. Public Security organs had, in many of the categories of cases reviewed in the post-Mao transitional justice system, regulalry and routinely employed the operational instrument of the teqing to obtain (fabricate?) evidence and secure (false?) convictions. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/4246971
- author
- Schoenhals, Michael LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2013
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- unpublished
- subject
- keywords
- China, law, justice, Cultural Revolution, informers, inoffizielle Mitarbeiter
- pages
- 15 pages
- conference name
- Justice and Accountability in Maoist China and After
- conference location
- München, Germany
- conference dates
- 2013-03-08
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- f3493e1f-fa04-48b5-83c2-3d83cfd5c862 (old id 4246971)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-04 13:01:33
- date last changed
- 2023-04-18 18:14:25
@misc{f3493e1f-fa04-48b5-83c2-3d83cfd5c862, abstract = {{My paper begins with some brief observations on the existing literature on the Chinese Communist Party’s post-Mao reversal of so-called unjust, wrong, and false cases. The paper then proceeds to examine a noteworthy difference between the PRC case and transitional justice in other states where “the transitional” entailed a further shift in power from an ancien regime to an entirely new order (viz. Eastern Europe after 1989): the complete absence from the Chinese public record of the inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (teqing in Chinese). Drawing on Chinese Public Security files, I argue that his/her absence from accounts of injustices and justice should not be interpreted as evidence of the teqing not actually having been present in Mao Zedong’s socio-political reality. Public Security organs had, in many of the categories of cases reviewed in the post-Mao transitional justice system, regulalry and routinely employed the operational instrument of the teqing to obtain (fabricate?) evidence and secure (false?) convictions.}}, author = {{Schoenhals, Michael}}, keywords = {{China; law; justice; Cultural Revolution; informers; inoffizielle Mitarbeiter}}, language = {{eng}}, title = {{Limitations of Transitional Justice in the PRC: the Curious Absence of the inoffizielle Mitarbeiter}}, url = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/6038786/4246972.pdf}}, year = {{2013}}, }