TY - JOUR AU - Folch, Dolors PY - 2018/03/01 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Crime and Prejudice: Ming Criminal Justice as Seen in 16th Century Spanish Sources JF - Sinología hispánica. China Studies Review JA - Sinología hispánica VL - 5 IS - 2 SE - DO - 10.18002/sin.v5i2.5404 UR - https://revpubli.unileon.es/index.php/sinologia/article/view/5404 SP - 1-26 AB - <p align="LEFT"> </p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;">González de Mendoza’s book on China, </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS,Trebuchet MS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS,Trebuchet MS; font-size: xx-small;">published in 1585, compiled all the first narratives about China, both Portuguese and Spanish. It contains a highly positive account of Ming criminal </span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">justice in which he emphasizes those elements </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS,Trebuchet MS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS,Trebuchet MS; font-size: xx-small;">of Chinese justice that deeply contrasts with contemporary Spanish and Mexican practices: the legal and public frame of torture, the public questioning of witnesses, the multilayered revisions of penalties, the public placing of the monetary fines, and the </span></span><em><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS,Trebuchet MS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS,Trebuchet MS; font-size: xx-small;">mise en scène </span></span></em><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS,Trebuchet MS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS,Trebuchet MS; font-size: xx-small;">of the </span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">death </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS,Trebuchet MS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS,Trebuchet MS; font-size: xx-small;">penalty. He insistently highlights the strict control upon every layer of officers and inferior ministers through a double procedure of rewards </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;">and punishments that guarantees the high standing of Chinese officials, an appraisal that Montaigne would pick up in his extremely rare allusions to China. At the same time, González de Mendoza, a thorough admirer of father Las Casas, the defender of Indians, decided to omit from his sources those elements that could provide the hardliners with arguments, the </span><em><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS,Trebuchet MS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS,Trebuchet MS; font-size: xx-small;">just title</span></span></em><span style="font-size: xx-small;">, to confront China, such as the nefandous sin witnessed by Loarca and the death by a thousand cuts described by Dueñas.</span></p> ER -