I BEGIN FROM THE UNCONTROVERSIAL fact that prior to the nineteenth century, Chinese had no word that we can translate as “rights.” There were, to be sure, concepts whose meanings partially overlapped with the meaning of rights. There were ideas and institutions whose roles might be argued to have served functions similar to those served by rights. I begin from the lack of a single translation because my first task is to explain what the subject matter of this chapter is: If not “rights,” then what?

Suppose that instead of assuming that “quanli” meant rights, we ask what the word would mean to an audience of educated Chinese in the nineteenth century who did not benefit from special glosses or explanations. They probably would take it to mean what the characters had been used to mean for 2000 and more years: power and benefit. To say that “one ought to enjoy quanli,” then, would just mean that one ought to enjoy powers and benefits. What would our hypothetical audience make of this notion? The more thought we give to this question, the more questions we realize must be answered before we can be sure of any assessment. After all, what powers and what benefits are we talking about? Must anything have been done to make the recipients merit the rewards? Does it make a difference who the people are – what roles they play in society?