(1) In terms of legislative guiding ideology, the policy of "imitating foreign capitalist legal forms and sticking to China's feudal legal tradition" runs through the process of amending laws in the late Qing Dynasty.
(2) From the content, the revision of laws in the late Qing Dynasty showed a strange mixture of feudal autocracy tradition and the latest achievements of western capitalist law.
Knowledge expansion:
Under the guidance of China's cultural traditions such as imperial system, benevolence and ancestral religion, the revision of laws in the late Qing Dynasty was ostensibly to restore consular jurisdiction, but in essence to safeguard the survival of the Qing court, thus "breaking the shackles and becoming a model power".
They equate the legal reform itself with the formulation of various westernized codes, and create a special mixture of Chinese and western legal cultures with middle school as the body and western learning as the purpose, without localizing it.
1840 After the Opium War, although the nature of China society was gradually changing, the feudal laws remained almost unchanged. Under various pressures at home and abroad, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty gradually revised and changed the original legal system to varying degrees in the early decade of the 20th century. We generally refer to the legal reform activities in this period as the revision of laws in the late Qing Dynasty.
The imperial edict on amending laws promulgated by the Qing court said: "There are many troubles in trade negotiations now, so it is necessary to ... carefully review and amend all existing laws and regulations according to the negotiation situation, and put forward appropriate suggestions so that they can be used at home and abroad during the service period and are conducive to governance." This passage reflects the guiding ideology of amending the law in the late Qing Dynasty.
In addition, in the imperial edicts issued successively by 1905, 1908 and 1909, the rulers of the Qing dynasty repeatedly emphasized the principle of amending the law, mainly: it is necessary to "assess the situation according to law" and "observe the situation in China with reference to foreign systems", although "it is not appropriate to stick to the rules".
However, "we can only learn from each other's strong points and learn from each other's strong points", and we must never shake the "three cardinal guides and five permanents", which is "the quintessence of the country that has been passed down for thousands of years and the foundation of the country." (Complete Works of Laws and Regulations of Qing Dynasty, Legal Department)