——Composed in celebration of Mr Jiang Ping's 90th birthday

Author Ji Weidong

Director of the China Institute for Socio-Legal Studies

Confucius said, "A great virtue must be accompanied by a long life", which can be applied to Mr Jiang Ping's 90th birthday celebration. I sincerely pray that Mr Jiang will always be in good health and live beyond 100 years old, and that he will witness the success of the rule of law in the world! In my 2003 article, "The Law Does Not Apply to Noblesse Oblige, and Only Then Does It Become a Public Instrument - Reflections on the Road to Constitutional Rule and Mr Jiang Ping's Character", I have highlighted his outstanding character of calling upon the world to be virtuous, especially his high moral character of bowing down only to the truth. Today, I would like to describe the side of him as a thinker who pursued studies to cultivate his moral character, and to provide some historical materials of his meeting friends with literature in Japan, which I have personally seen and heard.

Our face-to-face academic encounter began at the 31st Academic Conference of the Research Committee on Sociology of Law of the International Sociologic-al Association held at the University of Tokyo in 1995. Some people may wonder how Mr Jiang Ping, who is a great expert in civil and commercial law and Roman law, crossed over to the sociology of law all of a sudden. In fact, the reason is very simple. As we all know, the object of civil and commercial law in the field of civil society and the order of transactions, to the basic principle of autonomy. This kind of disciplinary attributes and sociology of law have a natural sense of affinity and blood relationship, and Mr Jiang Ping is particularly concerned about the interaction between law and society and the comparative analysis of the system, so it is not surprising that he pays close attention to and cooperates closely with the research of sociology of law, and the reason why the sociology of international law attaches great importance to him is even more self-evident.

I was still teaching at Kobe University in Japan at the time and was selected as a board member of the Research Committee on Sociology of Law of the International Sociologic-al Association (RCSL) in 1994, just in time to take part in the preparations for that Tokyo congress. I was involved in discussing and deciding on the selection of keynote speakers, featured speakers, and breakout presenters. The keynote speakers for the conference were selected based on the criteria of academic achievement, social influence, ability to express themselves in the international language, and state of health, and they were all world-renowned leaders in their fields. Mr Jiang Ping, who has long been engaged in the research and teaching of Roman law and Western civil and commercial law, coupled with his important position in legislation, has many academic friends and followers in Europe and the United States, and there was no doubt that he would be elected as one of the four keynote speakers of the plenary session. Nonetheless, I was heartened by the announcement of the voting results.