The primacy of the political order in East Asian societies: Some preliminary generalizations / Benjamin I. Schwartz -- Law as one of the foundations of state power in early imperial China / Anthony Hulsewé -- Imperial sovereignty: Dong Zhongshu's contribution and his predecessors / Michael Loewe -- Views of the state in Du You and Liu Zongyuan / David McMullen -- The role of the state as a structural element in polyethnic societies / Herbert Franke -- The rebirth of Chinese rule in times of trouble: North China in the early thirteenth century / Françoise Aubin. (cont.) Official conceptions of imperial authority at the end of the Qing Dynasty / Marianne Bastid -- The foundations and limits of state power in Guomindang ideology; Government, party, and people / Tatsuo Yamada -- Party leader or true ruler? Foundations and significance of Mao Zedong's personal power / Stuart R. Schram -- Marxism, the Leninist Party, the masses, and the citizens in the rebuilding of the Chinese state / Tang Tsou -- Democracy, interest, and virtue: The search for legitimacy in the People's Republic of China / David S.G. Goodman -- Concluding remarks on two aspects of the Chinese unitary state as compared with the European state system / Karl Bünger.