Abstract
The comprehensive reform of China’s criminal law constitutes a key component of the Chinese Communist Party’s plan for legal development. Since 1979, lawmakers in China have defined criminal acts and sanctions with increasing sophistication to prevent arbitrariness in arrest and prosecution. The Chinese also have codified criminal procedures to enhance predictability and provide some protection for the accused, and have increased the number of criminal courts, lawyers, and judges to handle this new reliance on an organized criminal justice system.