“To Promote Family Harmony and Social Stability”: Is the Anti-Domestic Violence Law of the People’s Republic of China an Effective Legal Response?

“Family is the basic cell of the society”. How many times have we read this sentence in Chinese discourse, especially in relation with “society”, “harmony”, “stability”? All those words have been used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in combination in order to create very popular expressions such as “family harmony” (jiating hexie), “family stability” (jiating wending), “social stability” (shehui wending). Domestic violence became a popular debate topic in the last decade, especially, when the government realised that it was undermining social stability and family harmony. The aim of this paper is to investigate the building of a prevention network through the rule of law and its effectiveness in curbing domestic violence in recent time, with a brief focus on the discourse on domestic violence in the time of the pandemic Covid-19. In order to accomplish this purpose, a brief introduction to the legal framework that governs domestic violence in China, and its development, will be discussed initially.