How Westerners looked at the legal tradition of China from another perspective? This article deals with the question through analyzing studies by Westerners in three phases. The author comments that for those who came to China in early phase, their purpose to understand Chinese law was to obtain extraterritoriality in China. To realize this goal, they had to prove that Chinese law was uncivilized, and thus, deserved no respect and observance at all. However, this preliminary evaluation of Chinese law by Westerners had direct impact on the legal reform pushed in the late Qing Period. Then, in the late 19 th and during the first part of the 20 th centuries, studies of Chinese law gained momentum and a number of academic works were published, covering Chinese legal system, structure of law, judicial procedures, criminal punishments, commercial and family laws. Finally, in the phase of contemporary studies, some prestigious scholars made contribution to the studies of Chinese law. They not only made full use of traditional documentations and statistics, but also employed various methods, such as methods of sociology and even natural sciences. Contemporary studies of legal tradition of China have posed challenges to some traditional theories and the new research methods represent the trend of studies of Chinese legal history in future.
