Mediation in China

Civil justice policy, rules, and practice in present-day People's Republic of China (PRC) strongly emphasize the role of mediation in civil cases. The principal Chinese term for mediation,tiaojie, has a broad meaning and in China's socialist legal system often represents a highly evaluative process in which the mediator subjects the parties to considerable pressure to settle, despite the existence of formal rules requiring consent.

The emphasis on mediation, and the style of mediation promoted, owes much to the judicial thought and practice of Ma Xiwu (1899–1962), a key figure in Communist Party attempts to combine socialist revolution with administrative consolidation during the late 1930s and the early 1940s. This occurred in a large area of northwest China mainly controlled by the revolutionary forces of the Chinese ...