As a prism through which to observe contemporary China, its relationship with the law is one that is under-studied but sheds a lot of light on the nation’s changes, from the lawless Cultural Revolution to legal reforms under Deng Xiaoping after 1978, the rise and fall of human rights lawyers, all the way through to “rule by law” under Xi Jinping.
Last week, at Asia Society in New York, we were delighted to host Jerome A. Cohen — a scholar of Chinese law who has been watching and participating in those changes since the 1970s — to discuss his forthcoming memoirs Eastward, Westward: A Life in Law (Columbia University Press, 2025). One of America’s foremost and most veteran voices on China, Cohen founded the study of Chinese law in the U.S., and is author and editor of many books on the topic. Over his career he has assisted various legal reforms in China, advised foreign companies starting up there in the 1980s, advocated for human rights, mentored students including a future president of Taiwan, and brokered solutions to numerous crises.
Eastward, Westward is full of anecdotes that would make any China watcher jealous: his first trip to China in the 1970s; meeting Zhou Enlai; negotiating with North Korea; helping to free Jack Downey from Chinese custody; the trial of the Kaohsiung Eight in Taiwan; facilitating Chen Guangcheng’s arrival in the U.S.; and much more. Last week, we published an excerpt of the book. Joining Cohen on stage to moderate the conversation were Katherine Wilhelm, his colleague at the NYU School of Law, and Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society:
Speakers
Jerome A. Cohen is an American legal scholar focused on Chinese law, and an advocate of human rights in China since the 1970s. He is professor emeritus at New York University School of Law, and an adjunct senior fellow for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Cohen is the author, co-author and editor of several books on Chinese law, and most recently the memoir Eastward, Westward: A Life in Law (2025).
Katherine Wilhelm is executive director of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute, an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law, and editor of the institute’s online essay series, USALI Perspectives. She is an expert on China’s legal system, public interest law organizations, and civil society.
Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society, and co-publisher of the China Books Review. He is a former Professor and Dean at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of over ten books about China. He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, Foreign Affairs and other publications, and has traveled widely in China since the 1970s.
China saw the world was passing China by. … So they wanted to learn law: international law, domestic law. They saw it as an instrument of strength for a society that was still trying to come together after the Cultural Revolution.
Jerome Cohen
The video of this talk was also published at Asia Society. ∎