In Memory of Professor Jiang Ping
Jiang Ping, born in December 1930, is a native of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. He is a professor and doctoral supervisor. Graduated from the Journalism Department of Yanjing University and the Law Department of Moscow University, he served as Vice-President and President of the China University of Political Science and Law from 1983 to 1990; he was a member of the Standing Committee of the Seventh National People's Congress and Deputy Director of the Legal Committee of the National People's Congress; and Vice-President of the China Law Society from 1988 to 1992. On 12 October 2001, he was awarded the title of "Professor for Life" of the China University of Political Science and Law.
Professor Jiang Ping died at 12.28 p.m. on 19 December 2023 in Beijing at the age of 94 after failing to recover from his illness.
Jiang Ping is the spiritual pillar of China's jurisprudence, a titanic figure whose influence has long gone beyond the realm of academia. As one of the main founders of China's civil and commercial jurisprudence, he has made remarkable achievements, participated in the formulation of the General Principles of Civil Law, served as the head of the drafting team for the Trust Law and the Contract Law, was in charge of the compilation of the Civil Code, and also played an important role in the formulation of the Company Law, the Contract Law, and the Property Law. He is a famous legal thinker, engaged in the foundation work of legal academics in the period of change, and played the role of flag-bearer in different periods; he is also a famous legal educator, not only one of the outstanding founders of China University of Political Science and Law, where he taught, but also a pioneer of contemporary legal education in China; he is also a veritable social activist, whose figure is active in the legislature, the judiciary, the government, and the enterprises and so on, adhering to the unity of knowledge and practice, and sparing no effort to participate in social practice, especially in the construction of the legal system. (Evaluation by China Economic Weekly)
After the Second World War, most of the governments of the major warring countries set up national days of mourning. In my life, there are almost no people I can really call my old friends and close friends, which may have something to do with my creed of life, "A gentleman's friendship is as light as water"! Perhaps because I was classified as a "rightist" when I was young, my old friends and close associates gradually left me, and I dared not ask for old friends and close associates anymore.
In the past thirty years, my achievements in the academic field may be closely related to the inspiration of two people:
One is Mr Li Shenzhi. I had only five years of interaction with Mr Li Shenzhi, during the period of the Legal Committee of the seventh session of the National People's Congress (1988-1993), when he was a member of the Legal Committee and I was the Deputy Director of the Legal Committee, and we often had meetings together. His "rightist" experience and Yanjing University education was the same with me, coupled with that our views on politics are exactly the same, so the conversation between us can be said to be "heart to heart". On our way to Guizhou inspection work, he said to me: you engage in the rule of law, will eventually find the confusion of rule of law lies in politics, the rule of law can not be separated from politics, you can not get around China's existing political system. These words are still fresh in my mind and have prompted me to be more concerned about the reform of the country's political system. The reform of the political system is the central core of China's reform.
The other is Mr Wu Jinglian. It has been almost 10 years since I interacted and cooperated with Mr. Wu Jinglian since the symposium of social science experts convened by the Central Committee in Beidaihe. He and I are of the same age, and our views on the problems facing China's reform and the way out are amazingly consistent. He often said that the main danger facing China's market economy is the excessive intervention of the state, the market is overly dependent on the state's public power, which will result in a "market economy for the powerful and the wealthy", so he shouted that the market economy needs the rule of law. I have learnt from the economist and received strong support that the protection of private rights in China is still the main problem facing the market.
From Mr LI Shenzhi and Mr WU Jinglian, I can see two qualities of Chinese intellectuals: one is the spirit of independence, which dares to think independently without yielding to any political pressure; and the other is the spirit of criticism, which dares to criticise the reality with one's academic conscience. At the age of 80, my only hope is to inherit these two qualities in a practical way, and to hold high the banner of independence and the banner of criticism.
In the past, I had attended the commemorative activities for Prof WANG Tieya's 80th birthday, and at that time, I was there in my capacity as a junior. Today, people are commemorating my 80th birthday, and I am attending as an elder. Since I started teaching in 1956, it is difficult to count the number of my students who have retired; since I resumed teaching in 1979, thousands of my students are in political and legal positions; since I started recruiting doctoral students in 1991, there are nearly a hundred doctoral students in nearly 20 sessions. My disciples have always urged me to write a memoir and leave my experiences to future generations. After repeated hesitations, I agreed to do so. At first, I started to write it myself, and after I had written about ten chapters and nearly 100,000 words on my experience of participating in legislative activities, I was at a loss as to who would read this rubbish. I stopped writing for more than half a year. Later, my student Zhao Xudong and other students, in conjunction with the commemoration of my 80th birthday, provided me with an assistant to form this 400,000-word autobiography by means of my oral narration, his record and collation, and my revision. Thanks to Mr Chen Xiahong's hard work, so that my autobiography in my 80th birthday in 2010 officially came out, but also be regarded as my own life review and summary! What will it be called when it is published as a book? One of my favorite poems in my own collection is "Linjiang Xian - Song of Lament":
"Thousands of words fill my chest, and I have no way to tell them. I want to cry, but I have no way to do so. I want to make three long appeals and ask the God of Heaven why the sun-shooter is not allowed to bend his bow. The clouds and the rain are turning over, and there is no end to the things that pass through the ears and the eyes. Who is the master of the world? If you want to pacify the anger in your heart, you can only sing about the East of the Yangtze River."
So, I chose " Fluctuations and Vicissitudes " as the title of the book, which tells about my 80 years of "Fluctuations and Vicissitudes".
The remaining days are few and far between. I hope that this book will be an inspiration to the future generations of the legal profession, and that it will live up to the original purpose of writing it.
I would like to dedicate this preface to my dear readers.
After the Second World War, in 1956, I stepped through the door of Beijing University of Political Science and Law, the predecessor of our university. Today, I have been teaching for forty years.
In forty years, more than half of the time was not engaged in the law profession I studied, and when I once again embarked on the law lectures, am nearly half a hundred years old. In recent years, often in contact with foreign scholars. One of them is over 40 years old, but he is already full of writings. Unwarranted political movement, misused my golden academic years. Lack of solid and deep academic background, is the biggest deficiency of teachers. The books they read are not as much as the young students read, and how can they teach and guide others. During the forty years of teaching life, the biggest regret is no more than this.
I remember reading an article that said: When I was studying at school, I was trembling and felt like I didn't understand anything; When I graduated from college, I was full of ambition and felt like I understood everything; As I was about to leave the stage of history, I had weathered many hardships but felt like I didn't understand anything. The way I talked about this kind of life mentality is certainly a bit accurate, but it can still be seen as a trajectory. At first, I always didn’t understand why the ancients taught us the virtues of "propriety, justice, honesty and shame" and there is such a "shame" word. In my views, shame is not a virtue! Later, I learnt that shame means shortcoming, and only by understanding shame can people become courageous. Virtue is not written as "courage" but as "shame", probably because courage can be the courage of a man, and knowing the shame of courage is the greatest courage. People's motivation is like this. Do not forget the shame of the country, in order to strive to serve the motherland; do not forget their own shame, in order to strive to improve themselves. Teaching is even more so. Teaching is like life, always inseparable from pursuing truth, goodness, and beauty.
Truth, which means the pursuit of truth, obedience to truth alone, bowing down to truth alone! Truth is classless, and it cannot be said that the proletariat necessarily holds the truth. Subordinates may obey their superiors, but it does not follow that the truth is necessarily in the hands of the superiors. Also, obedience of the minority to the majority does not necessarily mean that truth is on the side of the majority. Truth cannot be followed blindly; only through a process of comparison, analysis, reflection and discrimination can one come closer to the truth. Meanwhile, one voice and one thought cannot yield the truth. Truth also means true feelings, pure feelings, without hypocrisy, without pretence. Words can express true feelings, and language can express true feelings even better. An article may be more concise than a lesson, more rich in truth, but students listen to a lesson may be more fruitful than reading an article. The reason is that the teacher is emotionally in the teaching. However, if the teacher is reading like the announcer, and how different from making articles! A teacher's lecture should be like a passionate expression, expressing their inner self. Spread it with truth, feel it with true emotions!
Good, is perfect. A lesson is as if a work of art to be carved, and strive not to have a defeat, not a superfluous strokes; a lesson should also strive not to speak sets of words, nonsense, superfluous words! Teachers are as if the artist, and each lesson, each work of art are sustained by society's evaluation of his own. Workers make shoddy products, affecting the trademark, the product's reputation, while teachers make shoddy products, affecting his own credibility. Good is the style. The article should have their own style, and lecture should also have their own style. No style means same as others and is "chewing on someone else chewed bread". And chewing chewed bread is not fragrant!
The beauty is the teacher's virtue, and the most important teacher's virtue is to love their own teaching profession, but nowadays there are too few people who volunteer to be teachers in colleges and universities as their first choice. Some of my doctoral students are from Taiwan. One day each talked about their own post-graduation ambitions, and many mainland doctoral students aim to work in government agencies and companies after graduation, while most of the Taiwanese doctoral students take teaching in universities as their first choice. As a matter of fact, a Taiwanese doctoral student who is about to graduate has also worked hard to get a chair at Tunghai University. Only those who love their profession will really have the morality of their profession.
Only those who are honored to be teachers will pour their heart and soul into educating people. Beauty, but also temperament, the university is the highest institution of learning, I saw in the United States, Harvard University, Columbia University and other so-called Ivy League universities the campus culture temperament, the civilized temperament of the students, especially the beautiful temperament of professors, is indeed incomparable to the general public class, the businessman class. Only a high degree of civilization of teachers can bring about the civilization of students, the civilization of the campus, university professors should be the example of civilization, the embodiment of knowledge, with the temperament and demeanor that he should have!
Forty years of teaching is coming to an end, of course I have experienced storms and trials, but I have no regrets about the path I have chosen! If I were to choose a new career in my next life, I would still take being a university professor as my first goal.