Hualing Fu. “Pro Bono as Political Control: The Rise of Public Legal Services in China.” University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law Research Paper No. 2025/11, 2025. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5273177.

Pro bono has been primarily conceptualized as a payback to society by the privileged profession. It is also characterized as a commitment of lawyers to the public interest. Using the Chinese case as an example, I argue that pro bono work, defined as legal aid in the Chinese parlance, can serve as a tool for political control in specific contexts. By control, I mean the ability of the government to frame a dispute and determine the cause, scope, and direction of the legal action. My principal argument in this chapter is that disputes can be seen as property, and their ownership has been at the heart of the contention over the control of lawyers in China. Disputes may be used for particular objectives, depending on how they are framed. Legal aid in general can either be framed as a provision of welfare measures provided by a benevolent and paternalistic government or an opportunity to claim one’s rights against arbitrary power. Framing is consequential, and lawyers are important in framing disputes and conflicts. In the eyes of the Communist Party of China (the Party), disputes should belong to the state. The Party represents the people according to its doctrine and its interests identified with that of the people it represents. It is hostile to independent articulation and assertion of interests and prohibits independent representation. The Party needs to impose effective control over the disputing process to prevent conflict from being appropriated and exploited by hostile forces and their agents for ulterior agendas. This claim of ownership and the resulting political control over the legal process are defining characteristics of authoritarian legality. The essence of recent Chinese legal development is not merely a turn toward fear and repression but a strategic use of law to empower governance. The government agrees that disputes arising from China’s social and economic transitions require effective resolution, ideally through legal mechanisms. This chapter argues that the expanding public legal services (PLS), including legal aid, are the platform and instrument through which the Party reclaims its ownership of disputes.